What Is an ASR Hallucination?

Direct definition

In speech recognition, a hallucination is invented text that does not correspond to the audio — for example, repeated phrases, leftover prompt language, or fluent sentences during silence or music.

The sections below explain how hallucination is used in transcription and subtitle work, what people often mix up, and which VideoText workflow applies when the next step is a file or review pass.

Key takeaways

• Hallucinations are insertions, often fluent and therefore dangerous.
• They are not the same as a misheard homophone.
• Always spot-check silence, music beds, and the start of files.

How to treat them in QA

Delete invented spans. Do not “lightly edit” a hallucination into something that sounds plausible. If the audio is inaudible, use the style guide’s inaudible mark.

Related terms

• word error rate
• transcript QA
• automatic speech recognition
• All glossary terms

Sources

1. OpenAI: Whisper paper (robustness and error analysis context)