Overview of Japanese efforts toward an advanced man-machine interface through spoken language
Hiroya Fujisaki · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1988
An overview will be given of some recent efforts in Japan to promote and coordinate research activities toward the realization of an advanced man-machine interface through spoken language. In the field of speech processing, a large-scale national project was started in 1987 by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas from the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture (MESC) of Japan. It involves all the important academic groups as well as a number of experts from governmental organizations and private industries, and emphasizes the systematic coordination of research efforts through the use of common speech data, standardization of research tools, and shared research results. Another national project will start in 1989 to construct a database of the spoken dialects of Japanese. In the field of natural language processing, a separate project has also been carried out with the support of MESC. Efforts toward an integration of studies in the two areas, as well as toward closer cooperation between academic and industrial circles, have resulted in the establishment of a committee for academia—industry cooperation on the intelligent processing of linguistic information both in spoken and written forms under the auspices of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Some highlights of these activities will be given in the lecture.