Towards Comprehensive Stage-wise Benchmarking of Large Language Models in Fact-Checking

Fuente: arXiv
Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Lin, Hongzhan, Chen, Zixin, Shen, Zhiqi, Luo, Ziyang, Ye, Zhen, Ma, Jing, Chua, Tat-Seng, Xu, Guandong
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866915709714432000
author Lin, Hongzhan
Chen, Zixin
Shen, Zhiqi
Luo, Ziyang
Ye, Zhen
Ma, Jing
Chua, Tat-Seng
Xu, Guandong
author_facet Lin, Hongzhan
Chen, Zixin
Shen, Zhiqi
Luo, Ziyang
Ye, Zhen
Ma, Jing
Chua, Tat-Seng
Xu, Guandong
contents Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed in real-world fact-checking systems, yet existing evaluations focus predominantly on claim verification and overlook the broader fact-checking workflow, including claim extraction and evidence retrieval. This narrow focus prevents current benchmarks from revealing systematic reasoning failures, factual blind spots, and robustness limitations of modern LLMs. To bridge this gap, we present FactArena, a fully automated arena-style evaluation framework that conducts comprehensive, stage-wise benchmarking of LLMs across the complete fact-checking pipeline. FactArena integrates three key components: (i) an LLM-driven fact-checking process that standardizes claim decomposition, evidence retrieval via tool-augmented interactions, and justification-based verdict prediction; (ii) an arena-styled judgment mechanism guided by consolidated reference guidelines to ensure unbiased and consistent pairwise comparisons across heterogeneous judge agents; and (iii) an arena-driven claim-evolution module that adaptively generates more challenging and semantically controlled claims to probe LLMs' factual robustness beyond fixed seed data. Across 16 state-of-the-art LLMs spanning seven model families, FactArena produces stable and interpretable rankings. Our analyses further reveal significant discrepancies between static claim-verification accuracy and end-to-end fact-checking competence, highlighting the necessity of holistic evaluation. The proposed framework offers a scalable and trustworthy paradigm for diagnosing LLMs' factual reasoning, guiding future model development, and advancing the reliable deployment of LLMs in safety-critical fact-checking applications.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_02669
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Towards Comprehensive Stage-wise Benchmarking of Large Language Models in Fact-Checking
Lin, Hongzhan
Chen, Zixin
Shen, Zhiqi
Luo, Ziyang
Ye, Zhen
Ma, Jing
Chua, Tat-Seng
Xu, Guandong
Computation and Language
Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed in real-world fact-checking systems, yet existing evaluations focus predominantly on claim verification and overlook the broader fact-checking workflow, including claim extraction and evidence retrieval. This narrow focus prevents current benchmarks from revealing systematic reasoning failures, factual blind spots, and robustness limitations of modern LLMs. To bridge this gap, we present FactArena, a fully automated arena-style evaluation framework that conducts comprehensive, stage-wise benchmarking of LLMs across the complete fact-checking pipeline. FactArena integrates three key components: (i) an LLM-driven fact-checking process that standardizes claim decomposition, evidence retrieval via tool-augmented interactions, and justification-based verdict prediction; (ii) an arena-styled judgment mechanism guided by consolidated reference guidelines to ensure unbiased and consistent pairwise comparisons across heterogeneous judge agents; and (iii) an arena-driven claim-evolution module that adaptively generates more challenging and semantically controlled claims to probe LLMs' factual robustness beyond fixed seed data. Across 16 state-of-the-art LLMs spanning seven model families, FactArena produces stable and interpretable rankings. Our analyses further reveal significant discrepancies between static claim-verification accuracy and end-to-end fact-checking competence, highlighting the necessity of holistic evaluation. The proposed framework offers a scalable and trustworthy paradigm for diagnosing LLMs' factual reasoning, guiding future model development, and advancing the reliable deployment of LLMs in safety-critical fact-checking applications.
title Towards Comprehensive Stage-wise Benchmarking of Large Language Models in Fact-Checking
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.02669