Retrieval through explanation : an abductive inference approach to relevance feedback

Ruthven, I. and Lalmas, M. and van Rijsbergen, C.J.; Bridge, D.G. and Byrne, R.M. and O'Sullivan, B. and Prestwich, S. and Sorensen, H., eds. (1999) Retrieval through explanation : an abductive inference approach to relevance feedback. In: 10th Irish Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science, 1999-09-01 - 1999-09-03.

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Abstract

Relevance feedback techniques are designed to automatically improve a system's representation of a query by using documents the user has marked as relevant. However, traditional relevance feedback models suffer from a number of limitations that restrict their potential in supporting information seeking. One of the major limitations of relevance feedback is that it does not incorporate behavioural aspects of information seeking - how and why users assess relevance. We propose that relevance feedback should be viewed as a process of explanation and demonstrate how this limitation of relevance feedback techniques can be overcome by a theory of relevance feedback based on abductive inference.