A Multi-Layer Network Applied to Recognition of Yes/No Idiomatic Phrases

The task of recognizing spoken utterances of 'yes' and 'no' can be, in practice, difficult to accomplish for casual users. This simple example encapsulates some of the difficult problems encountered in speech understnading systems, due to the wide variety of idiomatic phases that can be utilized by a broad speaker population. For example, alternatives for 'yes' might be: 'sure', 'okay', or 'sounds good to me'. Alternatives to 'no' are: 'nah', 'nope' or 'over my dead body'. Successful capture of these idioms is made yet more difficult by the evolving nature of the language. Each year, people seem to invent new ways of saying yes and no.