PAIRS: Parametric-Verified Adaptive Information Retrieval and Selection for Efficient RAG

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Chen, Wang, Qi, Guanqiang, Li, Weikang, Li, Yang, Xia, Deguo, Huang, Jizhou
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Chen, Wang
Qi, Guanqiang
Li, Weikang
Li, Yang
Xia, Deguo
Huang, Jizhou
author_facet Chen, Wang
Qi, Guanqiang
Li, Weikang
Li, Yang
Xia, Deguo
Huang, Jizhou
contents Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) has become a cornerstone technique for enhancing large language models (LLMs) with external knowledge. However, current RAG systems face two critical limitations: (1) they inefficiently retrieve information for every query, including simple questions that could be resolved using the LLM's parametric knowledge alone, and (2) they risk retrieving irrelevant documents when queries contain sparse information signals. To address these gaps, we introduce Parametric-verified Adaptive Information Retrieval and Selection (PAIRS), a training-free framework that integrates parametric and retrieved knowledge to adaptively determine whether to retrieve and how to select external information. Specifically, PAIRS employs a dual-path generation mechanism: First, the LLM produces both a direct answer and a context-augmented answer using self-generated pseudo-context. When these outputs converge, PAIRS bypasses external retrieval entirely, dramatically improving the RAG system's efficiency. For divergent cases, PAIRS activates a dual-path retrieval (DPR) process guided by both the original query and self-generated contextual signals, followed by an Adaptive Information Selection (AIS) module that filters documents through weighted similarity to both sources. This simple yet effective approach can not only enhance efficiency by eliminating unnecessary retrievals but also improve accuracy through contextually guided retrieval and adaptive information selection. Experimental results on six question-answering (QA) benchmarks show that PAIRS reduces retrieval costs by around 25% (triggering for only 75% of queries) while still improving accuracy-achieving +1.1% EM and +1.0% F1 over prior baselines on average.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_04057
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle PAIRS: Parametric-Verified Adaptive Information Retrieval and Selection for Efficient RAG
Chen, Wang
Qi, Guanqiang
Li, Weikang
Li, Yang
Xia, Deguo
Huang, Jizhou
Computation and Language
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) has become a cornerstone technique for enhancing large language models (LLMs) with external knowledge. However, current RAG systems face two critical limitations: (1) they inefficiently retrieve information for every query, including simple questions that could be resolved using the LLM's parametric knowledge alone, and (2) they risk retrieving irrelevant documents when queries contain sparse information signals. To address these gaps, we introduce Parametric-verified Adaptive Information Retrieval and Selection (PAIRS), a training-free framework that integrates parametric and retrieved knowledge to adaptively determine whether to retrieve and how to select external information. Specifically, PAIRS employs a dual-path generation mechanism: First, the LLM produces both a direct answer and a context-augmented answer using self-generated pseudo-context. When these outputs converge, PAIRS bypasses external retrieval entirely, dramatically improving the RAG system's efficiency. For divergent cases, PAIRS activates a dual-path retrieval (DPR) process guided by both the original query and self-generated contextual signals, followed by an Adaptive Information Selection (AIS) module that filters documents through weighted similarity to both sources. This simple yet effective approach can not only enhance efficiency by eliminating unnecessary retrievals but also improve accuracy through contextually guided retrieval and adaptive information selection. Experimental results on six question-answering (QA) benchmarks show that PAIRS reduces retrieval costs by around 25% (triggering for only 75% of queries) while still improving accuracy-achieving +1.1% EM and +1.0% F1 over prior baselines on average.
title PAIRS: Parametric-Verified Adaptive Information Retrieval and Selection for Efficient RAG
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.04057