Related papers: MIMICS-Duo: Offline & Online Evaluation of Search …
Search clarification has recently attracted much attention due to its applications in search engines. It has also been recognized as a major component in conversational information seeking systems. Despite its importance, the research…
The effectiveness of clarification question models in engaging users within search systems is currently constrained, casting doubt on their overall usefulness. To improve the performance of these models, it is crucial to employ assessment…
This study is the first attempt to explore the impact of clarification question modality on user preference in search engines. We introduce the multi-modal search clarification dataset, MIMICS-MM, containing clarification questions with…
Users often fail to formulate their complex information needs in a single query. As a consequence, they may need to scan multiple result pages or reformulate their queries, which may be a frustrating experience. Alternatively, systems can…
Asking clarifying questions in response to search queries has been recognized as a useful technique for revealing the underlying intent of the query. Clarification has applications in retrieval systems with different interfaces, from the…
Ambiguous questions persist in open-domain question answering, because formulating a precise question with a unique answer is often challenging. Previously, Min et al. (2020) have tackled this issue by generating disambiguated questions for…
In mixed-initiative conversational search systems, clarifying questions are used to help users who struggle to express their intentions in a single query. These questions aim to uncover user's information needs and resolve query…
Search and recommender systems that take the initiative to ask clarifying questions to better understand users' information needs are receiving increasing attention from the research community. However, to the best of our knowledge, there…
Enabling open-domain dialogue systems to ask clarifying questions when appropriate is an important direction for improving the quality of the system response. Namely, for cases when a user request is not specific enough for a conversation…
Conversational query clarification enables users to refine their search queries through interactive dialogue, improving search effectiveness. Traditional approaches rely on text-based clarifying questions, which often fail to capture…
Clarifying the underlying user information need by asking clarifying questions is an important feature of modern conversational search system. However, evaluation of such systems through answering prompted clarifying questions requires…
We deal with the scenario of conversational search, where user queries are under-specified or ambiguous. This calls for a mixed-initiative setup. User-asks (queries) and system-answers, as well as system-asks (clarification questions) and…
Users often have trouble formulating their information needs into words on the first try when searching online. This can lead to frustration, as they may have to reformulate their queries when retrieved information is not relevant. This can…
In exploratory search, users often submit vague queries to investigate unfamiliar topics, but receive limited feedback about how the search engine understood their input. This leads to a self-reinforcing cycle of mismatched results and…
Clarification is increasingly becoming a vital factor in various topics of information retrieval, such as conversational search and modern Web search engines. Prompting the user for clarification in a search session can be very beneficial…
Recent research on conversational search highlights the importance of mixed-initiative in conversations. To enable mixed-initiative, the system should be able to ask clarifying questions to the user. However, the ability of the underlying…
Conversational search systems increasingly employ clarifying questions to refine user queries and improve the search experience. Previous studies have demonstrated the usefulness of text-based clarifying questions in enhancing both…
In conversational search, agents can interact with users by asking clarifying questions to increase their chance to find better results. Many recent works and shared tasks in both NLP and IR communities have focused on identifying the need…
Users of search-augmented LLMs rely on citations as evidence that responses are grounded in real sources, and rarely verify the cited pages themselves. Millions of queries per day now pass through these systems, making citation quality a…
To improve online search results, clarification questions can be used to elucidate the information need of the user. This research aims to predict the user engagement with the clarification pane as an indicator of relevance based on the…