EAGER: Dynamic Contextual Explanation of Search Results

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This research project aims to investigate and develop Defuddle, an approach and a system that analyzes documents at the top of a search engine’s ranked list to find human-readable explanations for why documents were retrieved for this query and, unlike existing technology, for how the documents relate to each other. The resulting advances in result explanation will make it easier for people to make sense of what happens when they search the web or any other collection of text documents. Given that search is among the most common online activities, the reduced frustration and time savings will be substantial: the impact on e-commerce, information gathering, education, and the other myriad uses of search will be far-reaching. The Defuddle project will train one graduate student and one postdoctoral researcher. It will also be incorporated into coursework at both the undergraduate and graduate courses. Defuddle provides explanations of each search result item in the context of the query and in light of the other top-ranked items. It treats the search engine as a “black box” so that the techniques can be applied broadly and independent of any particular engine. Defuddle focuses on designing and training appropriate neural models for explaining search results, without using any predefined explanation templates or explicit query facets. Defuddle lays the foundation for other search-related tasks that will greatly benefit from explanations: providing diversified search results such that the initially shown results cover the full range of query aspects; improving conversational search by elucidating why a user might prefer one answer over another; and particularly importantly, providing a mechanism to identify biased results, either alerting a user to the bias or possibly adjusting the ranked list to compensate. As permitted by human subjects review, data sets and software developed in the Defuddle project will be made freely available at or before the conclusion of the project.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.