Experiments in Text Recognition with the Modified Viterbi Algorithm

In this paper a modification of the Viterbi algorithm is formally described, and a measure of its complexity is derived. The modified algorithm uses aheuristic to limit the search through a directed graph or trellis. The effectiveness of the algorithm is investigated via exhaustive experimentation on an input of machine-printed text. The algorithm assumes language to be a Markov chain and uses transition probabilities between characters. The results empirically answer the long-standing question of what is the benefit, if any, of using transition probabilities that depend on the length of a word and their position in it.