A prototype voice-response questionnaire for the u.s. census

This paper describes a study conducted to determine the feasibility of using a spoken questionnaire to collect information for the Year 2000 Census in the USA. To reene the dialogue and to train recognizers, we collected complete protocols from over 4000 callers. For the responses labeled (about half), over 99 percent of the answers contain the desired information. The recognizers trained so far range in performance from 75 percent correct on year of birth to over 99 percent for marital status. We developed a prototype system that engages the callers in a dialogue to obtain the desired information, reviews the recognized information at the end of the call, and asks the caller to identify the response categories that are incorrect.