Minority-Aware Satisfaction Estimation in Dialogue Systems via Preference-Adaptive Reinforcement Learning

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Main Authors: Fu, Yahui, Pang, Zi Haur, Kawahara, Tatsuya
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Fu, Yahui
Pang, Zi Haur
Kawahara, Tatsuya
author_facet Fu, Yahui
Pang, Zi Haur
Kawahara, Tatsuya
contents User satisfaction in dialogue systems is inherently subjective. When the same response strategy is applied across users, minority users may assign different satisfaction ratings than majority users due to variations in individual intents and preferences. However, existing alignment methods typically train one-size-fits-all models that aim for broad consensus, often overlooking minority perspectives and user-specific adaptation. We propose a unified framework that models both individual- and group-level preferences for user satisfaction estimation. First, we introduce Chain-of-Personalized-Reasoning (CoPeR) to capture individual preferences through interpretable reasoning chains. Second, we propose an expectation-maximization-based Majority-Minority Preference-Aware Clustering (M2PC) algorithm that discovers distinct user groups in an unsupervised manner to learn group-level preferences. Finally, we integrate these components into a preference-adaptive reinforcement learning framework (PAda-PPO) that jointly optimizes alignment with both individual and group preferences. Experiments on the Emotional Support Conversation dataset demonstrate consistent improvements in user satisfaction estimation, particularly for underrepresented user groups.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_05407
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Minority-Aware Satisfaction Estimation in Dialogue Systems via Preference-Adaptive Reinforcement Learning
Fu, Yahui
Pang, Zi Haur
Kawahara, Tatsuya
Computation and Language
User satisfaction in dialogue systems is inherently subjective. When the same response strategy is applied across users, minority users may assign different satisfaction ratings than majority users due to variations in individual intents and preferences. However, existing alignment methods typically train one-size-fits-all models that aim for broad consensus, often overlooking minority perspectives and user-specific adaptation. We propose a unified framework that models both individual- and group-level preferences for user satisfaction estimation. First, we introduce Chain-of-Personalized-Reasoning (CoPeR) to capture individual preferences through interpretable reasoning chains. Second, we propose an expectation-maximization-based Majority-Minority Preference-Aware Clustering (M2PC) algorithm that discovers distinct user groups in an unsupervised manner to learn group-level preferences. Finally, we integrate these components into a preference-adaptive reinforcement learning framework (PAda-PPO) that jointly optimizes alignment with both individual and group preferences. Experiments on the Emotional Support Conversation dataset demonstrate consistent improvements in user satisfaction estimation, particularly for underrepresented user groups.
title Minority-Aware Satisfaction Estimation in Dialogue Systems via Preference-Adaptive Reinforcement Learning
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.05407