1998 Broadcast News Benchmark Test Results: English and Non-English Word Error Rate Performance Measures

Published

October 20, 1998

Author(s)

D S. Pallett, Jonathan G. Fiscus, John S. Garofolo, Alvin F. Martin, Mark A. Przybocki

Abstract

This paper documents the use of Broadcast News test materials in DARPA-sponsored Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) Benchmark Tests conducted late in 1998. As in last year s tests, statistical selection procedures were used in selecting test materials. Two test epochs were used, each yielding (nominally) one and one-half hours of test material. One of the test sets was drawn from the same test epoch as was used for last year s tests, and the other was drawn from a more recent period. Results are reported for two types of systems: one (the Hub, or baseline systems) for which there were no limits on computational resources, and another (the less than 10X real-time spoke systems) for systems that ran in less than 10 times real time. The lowest word error rate reported this year for the Hub systems was 13.5 %, contrasting with last year's lowest word error rate of 16.2 %. For the less than 10X real-time spoke systems, the lowest reported word error rate was 16.1 %.Results are also reported, for the second year, on non-English language Broadcast News materials in Spanish and Mandarin.

Citation

DARPA Broadcast News Transcription and Understanding Workshop

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

automatic speech recognition, benchmark tests, broadcast news

Citation

Pallett, D. , Fiscus, J. , Garofolo, J. , Martin, A. and Przybocki, M. (1998), 1998 Broadcast News Benchmark Test Results: English and Non-English Word Error Rate Performance Measures, DARPA Broadcast News Transcription and Understanding Workshop, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=151417 (Accessed November 5, 2025)