Assessing the term independence assumption in blind relevance feedback

When applying blind relevance feedback for ad hoc document retrieval, is it possible to identify, a priori, the set of query terms that will most improve retrieval performance? Can this complex problem be reduced into the simpler one of making independent decisions about the performance effects of each query term? Our experiments suggest that, for the selection of terms for blind relevance feedback, the term independence assumption may be empirically justified. Categories and Subject Descriptors: H.3.3 [Information Storage and Retrieval]: Information Search and Retrieval—Relevance feedback General Terms: Experimentation

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: SIGIR
• Authors: Jimmy J. Lin, G. Craig Murray
• Keywords: Blind Relevance Feedback, Hoc Document Retrieval, Query Term, SIGIR 2005