RelationalFactQA: A Benchmark for Evaluating Tabular Fact Retrieval from Large Language Models

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Satriani, Dario, Veltri, Enzo, Santoro, Donatello, Papotti, Paolo
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866910970779009024
author Satriani, Dario
Veltri, Enzo
Santoro, Donatello
Papotti, Paolo
author_facet Satriani, Dario
Veltri, Enzo
Santoro, Donatello
Papotti, Paolo
contents Factuality in Large Language Models (LLMs) is a persistent challenge. Current benchmarks often assess short factual answers, overlooking the critical ability to generate structured, multi-record tabular outputs from parametric knowledge. We demonstrate that this relational fact retrieval is substantially more difficult than isolated point-wise queries, even when individual facts are known to the model, exposing distinct failure modes sensitive to output dimensionality (e.g., number of attributes or records). To systematically evaluate this under-explored capability, we introduce RelationalFactQA, a new benchmark featuring diverse natural language questions (paired with SQL) and gold-standard tabular answers, specifically designed to assess knowledge retrieval in a structured format. RelationalFactQA enables analysis across varying query complexities, output sizes, and data characteristics. Our experiments reveal that even state-of-the-art LLMs struggle significantly, not exceeding 25% factual accuracy in generating relational outputs, with performance notably degrading as output dimensionality increases. These findings underscore critical limitations in current LLMs' ability to synthesize structured factual knowledge and establish RelationalFactQA as a crucial resource for measuring future progress in LLM factuality.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_21409
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle RelationalFactQA: A Benchmark for Evaluating Tabular Fact Retrieval from Large Language Models
Satriani, Dario
Veltri, Enzo
Santoro, Donatello
Papotti, Paolo
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Databases
Factuality in Large Language Models (LLMs) is a persistent challenge. Current benchmarks often assess short factual answers, overlooking the critical ability to generate structured, multi-record tabular outputs from parametric knowledge. We demonstrate that this relational fact retrieval is substantially more difficult than isolated point-wise queries, even when individual facts are known to the model, exposing distinct failure modes sensitive to output dimensionality (e.g., number of attributes or records). To systematically evaluate this under-explored capability, we introduce RelationalFactQA, a new benchmark featuring diverse natural language questions (paired with SQL) and gold-standard tabular answers, specifically designed to assess knowledge retrieval in a structured format. RelationalFactQA enables analysis across varying query complexities, output sizes, and data characteristics. Our experiments reveal that even state-of-the-art LLMs struggle significantly, not exceeding 25% factual accuracy in generating relational outputs, with performance notably degrading as output dimensionality increases. These findings underscore critical limitations in current LLMs' ability to synthesize structured factual knowledge and establish RelationalFactQA as a crucial resource for measuring future progress in LLM factuality.
title RelationalFactQA: A Benchmark for Evaluating Tabular Fact Retrieval from Large Language Models
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Databases
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.21409