RPDR: A Round-trip Prediction-Based Data Augmentation Framework for Long-Tail Question Answering

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Yiming, Zhang, Siyue, Zhao, Junbo, Zhao, Chen
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Zhang, Yiming
Zhang, Siyue
Zhao, Junbo
Zhao, Chen
author_facet Zhang, Yiming
Zhang, Siyue
Zhao, Junbo
Zhao, Chen
contents Long-tail question answering presents significant challenges for large language models (LLMs) due to their limited ability to acquire and accurately recall less common knowledge. Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems have shown great promise in mitigating this limitation by integrating external retrieval mechanisms. However, dense retrieval models often face the same difficulties when generalizing to rare or niche knowledge. In this study, we introduce RPDR, a novel data augmentation framework that selects high-quality easy-to-learn training data, to enhance dense retrievers. Our approach is built around three core components: synthetic data generation, data selection with Round-Trip prediction to identify easy-to-learn instances, and retriever training with these instances. We evaluate RPDR on two long-tail retrieval benchmarks, PopQA and EntityQuestion, demonstrating substantial improvements over existing retrievers like BM25 and Contriver, especially on extremely long-tail categories. We identify the strengths and limitations of RPDR through detailed human analysis and propose a dynamic routing mechanism to dynamically route queries to specialized retrieval modules to further improve retrieval performance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_17366
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle RPDR: A Round-trip Prediction-Based Data Augmentation Framework for Long-Tail Question Answering
Zhang, Yiming
Zhang, Siyue
Zhao, Junbo
Zhao, Chen
Computation and Language
Long-tail question answering presents significant challenges for large language models (LLMs) due to their limited ability to acquire and accurately recall less common knowledge. Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems have shown great promise in mitigating this limitation by integrating external retrieval mechanisms. However, dense retrieval models often face the same difficulties when generalizing to rare or niche knowledge. In this study, we introduce RPDR, a novel data augmentation framework that selects high-quality easy-to-learn training data, to enhance dense retrievers. Our approach is built around three core components: synthetic data generation, data selection with Round-Trip prediction to identify easy-to-learn instances, and retriever training with these instances. We evaluate RPDR on two long-tail retrieval benchmarks, PopQA and EntityQuestion, demonstrating substantial improvements over existing retrievers like BM25 and Contriver, especially on extremely long-tail categories. We identify the strengths and limitations of RPDR through detailed human analysis and propose a dynamic routing mechanism to dynamically route queries to specialized retrieval modules to further improve retrieval performance.
title RPDR: A Round-trip Prediction-Based Data Augmentation Framework for Long-Tail Question Answering
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.17366