Reliability of Topic Modeling

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Schroeder, Kayla, Wood-Doughty, Zach
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Schroeder, Kayla
Wood-Doughty, Zach
author_facet Schroeder, Kayla
Wood-Doughty, Zach
contents Topic models allow researchers to extract latent factors from text data and use those variables in downstream statistical analyses. However, these methodologies can vary significantly due to initialization differences, randomness in sampling procedures, or noisy data. Reliability of these methods is of particular concern as many researchers treat learned topic models as ground truth for subsequent analyses. In this work, we show that the standard practice for quantifying topic model reliability fails to capture essential aspects of the variation in two widely-used topic models. Drawing from a extensive literature on measurement theory, we provide empirical and theoretical analyses of three other metrics for evaluating the reliability of topic models. On synthetic and real-world data, we show that McDonald's $ω$ provides the best encapsulation of reliability. This metric provides an essential tool for validation of topic model methodologies that should be a standard component of any topic model-based research.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_23186
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reliability of Topic Modeling
Schroeder, Kayla
Wood-Doughty, Zach
Computation and Language
Topic models allow researchers to extract latent factors from text data and use those variables in downstream statistical analyses. However, these methodologies can vary significantly due to initialization differences, randomness in sampling procedures, or noisy data. Reliability of these methods is of particular concern as many researchers treat learned topic models as ground truth for subsequent analyses. In this work, we show that the standard practice for quantifying topic model reliability fails to capture essential aspects of the variation in two widely-used topic models. Drawing from a extensive literature on measurement theory, we provide empirical and theoretical analyses of three other metrics for evaluating the reliability of topic models. On synthetic and real-world data, we show that McDonald's $ω$ provides the best encapsulation of reliability. This metric provides an essential tool for validation of topic model methodologies that should be a standard component of any topic model-based research.
title Reliability of Topic Modeling
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.23186