Re: SpeechRecognitionAlternative.interpretation when interpretation can't be provided

Debbie,
Looking at this from the viewpoint of what is easier for the JavaScript
author, I believe:

SpeechRecognitionAlternative.transcript must return a string (even if an
empty string). Thus, an author wishing to use the transcript doesn't need
to perform any type checking.

SpeechRecognitionAlternative.interpretation must be null if no
interpretation is provided.  This simplifies the required conditional by
eliminating type checking.  For example:

transcript = "from New York to San Francisco";

interpretation = {
  depart: "New York",
  arrive: "San Francisco"
};

if (interpretation)  // this works if interpretation is present or if null
  document.write("Depart " + interpretation.depart + " and arrive in " +
interpretation.arrive);
else
  document.write(transcript);
fi


Whereas, if the interpretation contains the transcript string when no
interpretation is present, the condition would have to be:

if (typeof(interpretation) != "string")

Which is more complex, and more prone to errors (e.g. if spell "string"
wrong).

/Glen Shires


On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 6:37 AM, Deborah Dahl <
dahl@conversational-technologies.com> wrote:

> Hi Glenn,****
>
> In the case of an SLM, if there’s a classification, I think the
> classification would be the interpretation. If the SLM is just used to
> improve dictation results, without classification, then the interpretation
> would be whatever we say it is – either the transcript, null, or undefined.
> ****
>
> My point about stating that the “transcript” attribute is required or
> optional wasn’t whether or not there was a use case where it would be
> desirable not to return a transcript. My point was that the spec needs to
> be explicit about the optional/required status of every feature. It’s
> fine to postpone that decision if there’s any controversy, but if we all
> agree we might as well add it to the spec. ****
>
> I can’t think of any cases where it would be bad to return a transcript,
> although I can think of use cases where the developer wouldn’t choose to do
> anything with the transcript (like multi-slot form filling – all the end
> user really needs to see is the correctly filled slots). ****
>
> Debbie****
>
> ** **
>
> *From:* Glen Shires [mailto:gshires@google.com]
> *Sent:* Thursday, August 23, 2012 3:48 AM
> *To:* Deborah Dahl
> *Cc:* Hans Wennborg; Satish S; Bjorn Bringert; public-speech-api@w3.org
>
> *Subject:* Re: SpeechRecognitionAlternative.interpretation when
> interpretation can't be provided****
>
> ** **
>
> Debbie,****
>
> I agree with the need to support SLMs. This implies that, in some cases,
> the author may not specify semantic information, and thus there would not
> be an interpretation.****
>
> ** **
>
> Under what circumstances (except error conditions) do you envision that a
> transcript would not be returned?****
>
> ** **
>
> /Glen Shires****
>
> ** **
>
> On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 6:08 AM, Deborah Dahl <
> dahl@conversational-technologies.com> wrote:****
>
> Actually, Satish's comment made me think that we probably have a few other
> things to agree on before we decide what the default value of
> "interpretation" should be, because we haven't settled on a lot of issues
> about what is required and what is optional.
> Satish's argument is only relevant if we require SRGS/SISR for grammars and
> semantic interpretation, but we actually don't require either of those
> right
> now, so it doesn't matter what they do as far as the current spec goes.
> (Although it's worth noting that  SRGS doesn't require anything to be
> returned at all, even the transcript
> http://www.w3.org/TR/speech-grammar/#S1.10).
> So I think we first need to decide and explicitly state in the spec ---
>
> 1. what we want to say about grammar formats (which are allowed/required,
> or
> is the grammar format open). It probably needs to be somewhat open because
> of SLM's.
> 2. what we want to say about semantic tag formats (are proprietary formats
> allowed, is SISR required or is the semantic tag format just whatever the
> grammar format uses)
> 3. is "transcript" required?
> 4. is "interpretation" required?
>
> Debbie****
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Hans Wennborg [mailto:hwennborg@google.com]
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2012 12:50 PM
> > To: Glen Shires
> > Cc: Satish S; Deborah Dahl; Bjorn Bringert; public-speech-api@w3.org
> > Subject: Re: SpeechRecognitionAlternative.interpretation when
> > interpretation can't be provided
> >
> > Björn, Deborah, are you ok with this as well? I.e. that the spec
> > shouldn't mandate a "default" value for the interpretation attribute,
> > but rather return null when there is no interpretation?
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 6:32 PM, Glen Shires <gshires@google.com> wrote:
> > > I agree, return "null" (not "undefined") in such cases.
> > >
> > >
> > > On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 7:41 AM, Satish S <satish@google.com> wrote:
> > >>
> > >> > I may have missed something, but I don’t see in the spec where it
> says
> > >> > that “interpretation” is optional.
> > >>
> > >> Developers specify the interpretation value with SISR and if they
> don't
> > >> specify there is no 'default' interpretation available. In that sense
> it is
> > >> optional because grammars don't mandate it. So I think this API
> shouldn't
> > >> mandate providing a default value if the engine did not provide one,
> and
> > >> return null in such cases.
>
>
>
> > >>
> > >> Cheers
> > >> Satish
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 1:57 PM, Deborah Dahl
> > >> <dahl@conversational-technologies.com> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>> I may have missed something, but I don’t see in the spec where it
> says
> > >>> that “interpretation” is optional.
> > >>>
> > >>> From: Satish S [mailto:satish@google.com]
> > >>> Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 7:38 PM
> > >>> To: Deborah Dahl
> > >>> Cc: Bjorn Bringert; Hans Wennborg; public-speech-api@w3.org
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> Subject: Re: SpeechRecognitionAlternative.interpretation when
> > >>> interpretation can't be provided
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> 'interpretation' is an optional attribute because engines are not
> > >>> required to provide an interpretation on their own (unlike
> 'transcript').
> > As
> > >>> such I think it should return null when there isn't a value to be
> returned
> > >>> as that is the convention for optional attributes, not 'undefined' or
> a
> > copy
> > >>> of some other attribute.
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> If an engine chooses to return the same value for 'transcript' and
> > >>> 'interpretation' or do textnorm of the value and return in
> 'interpretation'
> > >>> that will be an implementation detail of the engine. But in the
> absence
> > of
> > >>> any such value for 'interpretation' from the engine I think the UA
> should
> > >>> return null.
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> Cheers
> > >>> Satish
> > >>>
> > >>> On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 2:52 PM, Deborah Dahl
> > >>> <dahl@conversational-technologies.com> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>> That's a good point. There are lots of use cases where some simple
> > >>> normalization is extremely useful, as in your example, or collapsing
> all
> > the
> > >>> ways that the user might say "yes" or "no". However, you could say
> that
> > once
> > >>> the implementation has modified or normalized the transcript that
> > means it
> > >>> has some kind of interpretation, so putting a normalized value in the
> > >>> interpretation slot should be fine. Nothing says that the
> "interpretation"
> > >>> has to be a particularly fine-grained interpretation, or one with a
> lot of
> > >>> structure.
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> > -----Original Message-----
> > >>> > From: Bjorn Bringert [mailto:bringert@google.com]
> > >>> > Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 9:09 AM
> > >>> > To: Hans Wennborg
> > >>> > Cc: Conversational; public-speech-api@w3.org
> > >>> > Subject: Re: SpeechRecognitionAlternative.interpretation when
> > >>> > interpretation can't be provided
> > >>> >
> > >>> > I'm not sure that it has to be that strict in requiring that the
> value
> > >>> > is the same as the "transcript" attribute. For example, an engine
> > >>> > might return the words recognized in "transcript" and apply some
> > extra
> > >>> > textnorm to the text that it returns in "interpretation", e.g.
> > >>> > converting digit words to digits ("three" -> "3"). Not sure if
> that's
> > >>> > useful though.
> > >>> >
> > >>> > On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 1:58 PM, Hans Wennborg
> > >>> > <hwennborg@google.com> wrote:
> > >>> > > Yes, the raw text is in the 'transcript' attribute.
> > >>> > >
> > >>> > > The description of 'interpretation' is currently: "The
> interpretation
> > >>> > > represents the semantic meaning from what the user said. This
> > might
> > >>> > > be
> > >>> > > determined, for instance, through the SISR specification of
> semantics
> > >>> > > in a grammar."
> > >>> > >
> > >>> > > I propose that we change it to "The interpretation represents the
> > >>> > > semantic meaning from what the user said. This might be
> > determined,
> > >>> > > for instance, through the SISR specification of semantics in a
> > >>> > > grammar. If no semantic meaning can be determined, the attribute
> > must
> > >>> > > be a string with the same value as the 'transcript' attribute."
> > >>> > >
> > >>> > > Does that sound good to everyone? If there are no objections,
> I'll
> > >>> > > make the change to the draft next week.
> > >>> > >
> > >>> > > Thanks,
> > >>> > > Hans
> > >>> > >
> > >>> > > On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 5:29 PM, Conversational
> > >>> > > <dahl@conversational-technologies.com> wrote:
> > >>> > >> I can't check the spec right now, but I assume there's already
> an
> > >>> > >> attribute
> > >>> > that currently is defined to contain the raw text. So I think we
> could
> > >>> > say that
> > >>> > if there's no interpretation the value of the interpretation
> attribute
> > >>> > would be
> > >>> > the same as the value of the "raw string" attribute,
> > >>> > >>
> > >>> > >> Sent from my iPhone
> > >>> > >>
> > >>> > >> On Aug 15, 2012, at 9:57 AM, Hans Wennborg
> > <hwennborg@google.com>
> > >>> > wrote:
> > >>> > >>
> > >>> > >>> OK, that would work I suppose.
> > >>> > >>>
> > >>> > >>> What would the spec text look like? Something like "[...] If no
> > >>> > >>> semantic meaning can be determined, the attribute will a string
> > >>> > >>> representing the raw words that the user spoke."?
> > >>> > >>>
> > >>> > >>> On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 2:24 PM, Bjorn Bringert
> > >>> > <bringert@google.com> wrote:
> > >>> > >>>> Yeah, that would be my preference too.
> > >>> > >>>>
> > >>> > >>>> On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 2:19 PM, Conversational
> > >>> > >>>> <dahl@conversational-technologies.com> wrote:
> > >>> > >>>>> If there isn't an interpretation I think it would make the
> most
> > >>> > >>>>> sense
> > >>> > for the attribute to contain the literal string result. I believe
> this
> > >>> > is what
> > >>> > happens in VoiceXML.
> > >>> > >>>>>
> > >>> > >>>>>> My question is: for implementations that cannot provide an
> > >>> > >>>>>> interpretation, what should the attribute's value be? null?
> > >>> > undefined?
> > >>> >
> > >>> >
> > >>> >
> > >>> > --
> > >>> > Bjorn Bringert
> > >>> > Google UK Limited, Registered Office: Belgrave House, 76 Buckingham
> > >>> > Palace Road, London, SW1W 9TQ
> > >>> > Registered in England Number: 3977902
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >****
>
> ** **
>