11. The system of claim 8 , wherein recognition hypotheses in each of the plurality of contextually similar N-best lists with confidence scores below a threshold are not considered when selecting the underlying user intention.
8. A system for using alternate recognition hypotheses to improve whole-dialog understanding accuracy, the system comprising: a processor; a first module configured to control the processor to receive an utterance as part of a user dialog turn; a second module configured to control the processor to generate an N-best list of recognition hypotheses for the user dialog turn and yield a generated N-best list; a third module configured to control the processor to select an underlying user intention based on a belief distribution across the generated N-best list and at least one contextually similar N-best list that is based on an analysis of confidence scores calculated by summing over all possible hidden states and all possible hidden user actions associated with the recognition hypotheses in the generated N-best list and the at least one contextually similar N-best list; and a fourth module configured to control the processor to respond to the user based on the selected underlying user intention.