Online unsupervised learning of hidden Markov models for adaptive speech recognition

A novel framework of an online unsupervised learning algorithm is presented to flexibly adapt the existing speaker-independent hidden Markov models (HMMs) to nonstationary environments induced by varying speakers, transmission channels, ambient noises, etc. The quasi-Bayes (QB) estimate is applied to incrementally obtain word sequence and adaptation parameters for adjusting HMMs when a block of unlabelled data is enrolled. The underlying statistics of a nonstationary environment can be successively traced according to the newest enrolment data. To improve the QB estimate, the adaptive initial hyperparameters are employed in the beginning session of online learning. These hyperparameters are estimated from a cluster of training speakers closest to the test environment. Additionally, a selection process is developed to select reliable parameters from a list of candidates for unsupervised teaming. A set of reliability assessment criteria is explored for selection. In a series of speaker adaptation experiments, the effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed and it is found that using the adaptive initial hyperparameters in online learning and the multiple assessments in parameter selection can improve the recognition performance.