Chapter 1: The Foundations of Speech Recognition

This chapter provides a high-level overview of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), establishing the core terminology and the structure of a typical system. We start by defining ASR, looking at its historical development, and outlining the key components that work together to turn speech into text.

By working through this material, you will learn to:

Define what Automatic Speech Recognition is and identify its primary function.
Describe the main stages of an ASR pipeline, from signal processing to the final decoded output.
Distinguish between different types of ASR systems, such as those built for a specific speaker versus any speaker.
Explain the fundamentals of how sound is represented digitally and the role of phonemes in language.

Sections

1.1 What is Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR)?
1.2 A Brief History of ASR Systems
1.3 The Components of a Speech Recognition Pipeline
1.4 Types of Speech Recognition: Speaker-Dependent vs. Speaker-Independent
1.5 Types of Speech Recognition: Isolated Word vs. Continuous Speech
1.6 How Computers Process Sound: Digital Audio Basics
1.7 Introduction to Phonemes and the Building Blocks of Speech