Disparity detection apparatus

Claim 1

A word recognition apparatus comprising: a character reader outputting a first train of characters α 1 , α 2 , . . . α n regarded as characters of a first kind and a second train of characters β 1 , β 2 , . . . β n regarded as characters of second kind in response to one character field, a first register for storing said first train of characters α 1 , α 2 . . . α n delivered thereto from said character reader in the order of delivery, a second register for storing said second train of characters β 1 , β 2 , . . . β n delivered thereto from said character reader in the order of delivery, a first storage device for storing a first kind intercharacter distance d{α, U(i)} between the ith character category U(i) of the first kind of characters and a character α outputted from said character reader regarded as the first kind of character, a second storage device for storing a second kind intercharacter distance d{β, L(i)} between the ith character category L(i) of the second kind of characters and a character β outputted from said character reader regarded as the second kind of character, a third storage device for storing a dictionary word to be compared with the output character train of said character reader, intercharacter distance reading means for reading out of said first storage device as the first kind intercharacter distance the distance d{α k , a J } which is determined by the jth character a j of said dictionary word and the content α k of the kth elements (where J-s≦k≦j+s and s is preselected constant 0, 1, 2, . . . ) of said first register to be compared with the jth character a j of said dictionary word and out of said second storage device as the second kind intercharacter distance the distance d{β k , a j } which is determined by said jth character a j of said dictionary word and the content β k of the kth element of said second register to be compared therewith, intercharacter distance comparing means for comparing the read-out intercharacter distances d{α k , a j } and d{β k , a j } to select a smaller one as a representative intercharacter distance between the character a j of the dictionary word and the kth output characters α k and β k , and means for calculating the disparity between the dictionary word and the character output trains by use of the representative character distances selected by said comparing means.