What is the difference between speech recognition and speech understanding?

Answer 1

Speech recognition is not speech understanding. Understanding the meaning of words is a higher intellectual function. Because a computer can respond to a vocal command does not mean it understands the command spoken. Speech Recognition involves the conversion of Spoken Sounds (user utterances) to Text (a string of words) requires knowledge of Phonetics and Phonology First, a microphone detects the sound waves spoken by a person and converts them into an analogue electrical signal. This analogue signal is digitised using an analogue/digital converter. The digital sequence is then ‘chopped up’ into its constituent words by looking for the quiet parts of the signal. These digital speech fragments are then recognised as individual words.

Answer 2

Speech recognition refers to the technology that accurately transcribes spoken words into text, while speech understanding involves extracting meaning and context from the transcribed words. Speech recognition focuses on converting speech to text, while speech understanding goes further to interpret the meaning and intent behind the words spoken.