Predicting the performance of passage retrieval for question answering

Eyal Krikon, David Carmel, Oren Kurland

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

We present a novel approach to predicting the performance of passage retrieval for question answering. That is, estimating the effectiveness, for answer extraction, of a list of passages retrieved in response to a question when relevance judgments are not available. Our prediction model integrates two types of estimates. The first estimates the probability that the information need expressed by the question is satisfied by the passages. This estimate is devised by adapting query-performance predictors developed for the document retrieval task. The second type estimates the probability that the passages contain the answers. This estimate relies on the occurrences of named entities that are likely to answer the question. Empirical evaluation demonstrates the merits of our prediction approach. For example, the prediction quality is much better than that of the only previous prediction method devised for the task at hand.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCIKM 2012 - Proceedings of the 21st ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management
Pages2451-2454
Number of pages4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2012
Event21st ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, CIKM 2012 - Maui, HI, United States
Duration: 29 Oct 20122 Nov 2012

Publication series

NameACM International Conference Proceeding Series

Conference

Conference21st ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, CIKM 2012
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityMaui, HI
Period29/10/122/11/12

Keywords

  • passage retrieval
  • query performance prediction
  • question answering

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Software
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
  • Computer Networks and Communications

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