{"id":"https://openalex.org/W7166873579","doi":"https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.findings-acl.414","title":"Masking or Mitigating? Deconstructing the Impact of Query Rewriting on Retriever Biases in RAG","display_name":"Masking or Mitigating? Deconstructing the Impact of Query Rewriting on Retriever Biases in RAG","publication_year":2026,"publication_date":"2026-01-01","ids":{"openalex":"https://openalex.org/W7166873579","doi":"https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.findings-acl.414"},"language":null,"primary_location":{"id":"doi:10.18653/v1/2026.findings-acl.414","is_oa":true,"landing_page_url":"https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.findings-acl.414","pdf_url":"https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.414.pdf","source":null,"license":"cc-by","license_id":"https://openalex.org/licenses/cc-by","version":"publishedVersion","is_accepted":true,"is_published":true,"raw_source_name":"Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2026","raw_type":"proceedings-article"},"type":"conference-paper","indexed_in":["crossref"],"open_access":{"is_oa":true,"oa_status":"gold","oa_url":"https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.414.pdf","any_repository_has_fulltext":null},"authorships":[{"author_position":"first","author":{"id":"https://openalex.org/A5139827300","display_name":"Agam Goyal","orcid":null},"institutions":[{"id":"https://openalex.org/I157725225","display_name":"University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign","ror":"https://ror.org/047426m28","country_code":"US","type":"education","lineage":["https://openalex.org/I157725225"]}],"countries":["US"],"is_corresponding":false,"raw_author_name":"Agam Goyal","raw_affiliation_strings":["Siebel School of Computing and Data Science , University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign \u2663 Adobe Research \u2661 Inception Labs \u2662 Indian Institute of Science"],"raw_orcid":null,"affiliations":[{"raw_affiliation_string":"Siebel School of Computing and Data Science , University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign \u2663 Adobe Research \u2661 Inception Labs \u2662 Indian Institute of Science","institution_ids":["https://openalex.org/I157725225"]}]},{"author_position":"middle","author":{"id":"https://openalex.org/A5122342490","display_name":"Koyel Mukherjee","orcid":null},"institutions":[{"id":"https://openalex.org/I157725225","display_name":"University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign","ror":"https://ror.org/047426m28","country_code":"US","type":"education","lineage":["https://openalex.org/I157725225"]}],"countries":["US"],"is_corresponding":false,"raw_author_name":"Koyel Mukherjee","raw_affiliation_strings":["Siebel School of Computing and Data Science , University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign \u2663 Adobe Research \u2661 Inception Labs \u2662 Indian Institute of Science"],"raw_orcid":null,"affiliations":[{"raw_affiliation_string":"Siebel School of Computing and Data Science , University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign \u2663 Adobe Research \u2661 Inception Labs \u2662 Indian Institute of Science","institution_ids":["https://openalex.org/I157725225"]}]},{"author_position":"middle","author":{"id":"https://openalex.org/A5139844936","display_name":"Apoorv Saxena","orcid":null},"institutions":[{"id":"https://openalex.org/I157725225","display_name":"University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign","ror":"https://ror.org/047426m28","country_code":"US","type":"education","lineage":["https://openalex.org/I157725225"]}],"countries":["US"],"is_corresponding":false,"raw_author_name":"Apoorv Saxena","raw_affiliation_strings":["Siebel School of Computing and Data Science , University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign \u2663 Adobe Research \u2661 Inception Labs \u2662 Indian Institute of Science"],"raw_orcid":null,"affiliations":[{"raw_affiliation_string":"Siebel School of Computing and Data Science , University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign \u2663 Adobe Research \u2661 Inception Labs \u2662 Indian Institute of Science","institution_ids":["https://openalex.org/I157725225"]}]},{"author_position":"middle","author":{"id":"https://openalex.org/A5139751178","display_name":"Anirudh Phukan","orcid":null},"institutions":[{"id":"https://openalex.org/I157725225","display_name":"University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign","ror":"https://ror.org/047426m28","country_code":"US","type":"education","lineage":["https://openalex.org/I157725225"]}],"countries":["US"],"is_corresponding":false,"raw_author_name":"Anirudh Phukan","raw_affiliation_strings":["Siebel School of Computing and Data Science , University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign \u2663 Adobe Research \u2661 Inception Labs \u2662 Indian Institute of Science"],"raw_orcid":null,"affiliations":[{"raw_affiliation_string":"Siebel School of Computing and Data Science , University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign \u2663 Adobe Research \u2661 Inception Labs \u2662 Indian Institute of Science","institution_ids":["https://openalex.org/I157725225"]}]},{"author_position":"middle","author":{"id":"https://openalex.org/A5139815961","display_name":"Eshwar Chandrasekharan","orcid":null},"institutions":[{"id":"https://openalex.org/I157725225","display_name":"University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign","ror":"https://ror.org/047426m28","country_code":"US","type":"education","lineage":["https://openalex.org/I157725225"]}],"countries":["US"],"is_corresponding":false,"raw_author_name":"Eshwar Chandrasekharan","raw_affiliation_strings":["Siebel School of Computing and Data Science , University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign \u2663 Adobe Research \u2661 Inception Labs \u2662 Indian Institute of Science"],"raw_orcid":null,"affiliations":[{"raw_affiliation_string":"Siebel School of Computing and Data Science , University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign \u2663 Adobe Research \u2661 Inception Labs \u2662 Indian Institute of Science","institution_ids":["https://openalex.org/I157725225"]}]},{"author_position":"last","author":{"id":"https://openalex.org/A5018532037","display_name":"Hari Sundaram","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3315-6055"},"institutions":[{"id":"https://openalex.org/I157725225","display_name":"University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign","ror":"https://ror.org/047426m28","country_code":"US","type":"education","lineage":["https://openalex.org/I157725225"]}],"countries":["US"],"is_corresponding":false,"raw_author_name":"Hari Sundaram","raw_affiliation_strings":["Siebel School of Computing and Data Science , University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign \u2663 Adobe Research \u2661 Inception Labs \u2662 Indian Institute of Science"],"raw_orcid":null,"affiliations":[{"raw_affiliation_string":"Siebel School of Computing and Data Science , University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign \u2663 Adobe Research \u2661 Inception Labs \u2662 Indian Institute of Science","institution_ids":["https://openalex.org/I157725225"]}]}],"institutions":[],"countries_distinct_count":1,"institutions_distinct_count":1,"corresponding_author_ids":[],"corresponding_institution_ids":["https://openalex.org/I157725225"],"apc_list":null,"apc_paid":null,"fwci":0.0,"has_fulltext":true,"cited_by_count":0,"citation_normalized_percentile":{"value":0.86056549,"is_in_top_1_percent":false,"is_in_top_10_percent":false},"cited_by_percentile_year":null,"biblio":{"volume":null,"issue":null,"first_page":"8517","last_page":"8530"},"is_retracted":false,"is_paratext":false,"is_xpac":false,"primary_topic":{"id":"https://openalex.org/T10286","display_name":"Information Retrieval and Search Behavior","score":0.5414999723434448,"subfield":{"id":"https://openalex.org/subfields/1710","display_name":"Information Systems"},"field":{"id":"https://openalex.org/fields/17","display_name":"Computer Science"},"domain":{"id":"https://openalex.org/domains/3","display_name":"Physical Sciences"}},"topics":[{"id":"https://openalex.org/T10286","display_name":"Information Retrieval and Search Behavior","score":0.5414999723434448,"subfield":{"id":"https://openalex.org/subfields/1710","display_name":"Information Systems"},"field":{"id":"https://openalex.org/fields/17","display_name":"Computer Science"},"domain":{"id":"https://openalex.org/domains/3","display_name":"Physical Sciences"}},{"id":"https://openalex.org/T10918","display_name":"Memory Processes and Influences","score":0.07460000365972519,"subfield":{"id":"https://openalex.org/subfields/2805","display_name":"Cognitive Neuroscience"},"field":{"id":"https://openalex.org/fields/28","display_name":"Neuroscience"},"domain":{"id":"https://openalex.org/domains/1","display_name":"Life Sciences"}},{"id":"https://openalex.org/T10181","display_name":"Natural Language Processing Techniques","score":0.050599999725818634,"subfield":{"id":"https://openalex.org/subfields/1702","display_name":"Artificial Intelligence"},"field":{"id":"https://openalex.org/fields/17","display_name":"Computer Science"},"domain":{"id":"https://openalex.org/domains/3","display_name":"Physical Sciences"}}],"keywords":[{"id":"https://openalex.org/keywords/masking","display_name":"Masking (illustration)","score":0.6916000247001648},{"id":"https://openalex.org/keywords/rewriting","display_name":"Rewriting","score":0.5641000270843506}],"concepts":[{"id":"https://openalex.org/C2777402240","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6783436","display_name":"Masking (illustration)","level":2,"score":0.6916000247001648},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C41008148","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q21198","display_name":"Computer science","level":0,"score":0.5673999786376953},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C154690210","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1668499","display_name":"Rewriting","level":2,"score":0.5641000270843506},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C204321447","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30642","display_name":"Natural language processing","level":1,"score":0.5220999717712402},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C154945302","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11660","display_name":"Artificial intelligence","level":1,"score":0.48660001158714294},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C41895202","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q8162","display_name":"Linguistics","level":1,"score":0.3328999876976013},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C28490314","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q189436","display_name":"Speech recognition","level":1,"score":0.3077999949455261},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C46312422","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11024","display_name":"Communication","level":1,"score":0.2985000014305115},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C31972630","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q844240","display_name":"Computer vision","level":1,"score":0.28189998865127563},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C23123220","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q816826","display_name":"Information retrieval","level":1,"score":0.2468000054359436}],"mesh":[],"locations_count":1,"locations":[{"id":"doi:10.18653/v1/2026.findings-acl.414","is_oa":true,"landing_page_url":"https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.findings-acl.414","pdf_url":"https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.414.pdf","source":null,"license":"cc-by","license_id":"https://openalex.org/licenses/cc-by","version":"publishedVersion","is_accepted":true,"is_published":true,"raw_source_name":"Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2026","raw_type":"proceedings-article"}],"best_oa_location":{"id":"doi:10.18653/v1/2026.findings-acl.414","is_oa":true,"landing_page_url":"https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.findings-acl.414","pdf_url":"https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.414.pdf","source":null,"license":"cc-by","license_id":"https://openalex.org/licenses/cc-by","version":"publishedVersion","is_accepted":true,"is_published":true,"raw_source_name":"Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2026","raw_type":"proceedings-article"},"sustainable_development_goals":[{"display_name":"Reduced inequalities","id":"https://metadata.un.org/sdg/10","score":0.5411226153373718}],"awards":[],"funders":[],"has_content":{"pdf":true,"grobid_xml":true},"content_urls":{"pdf":"https://content.openalex.org/works/W7166873579.pdf","grobid_xml":"https://content.openalex.org/works/W7166873579.grobid-xml"},"referenced_works_count":0,"referenced_works":[],"related_works":[],"abstract_inverted_index":{"Dense":[0],"retrievers":[1],"in":[2,26],"retrieval-augmented":[3],"generation":[4,94],"(RAG)":[5],"systems":[6],"exhibit":[7],"systematic":[8,40],"biasesincluding":[9],"brevity,":[10],"position,":[11],"literal":[12],"matching,":[13],"and":[14,110],"repetition":[15],"biases-that":[16],"can":[17],"compromise":[18],"retrieval":[19,49],"quality.Query":[20],"rewriting":[21,62,85],"techniques":[22,46],"are":[23],"now":[24],"standard":[25],"RAG":[27,151],"pipelines,":[28],"yet":[29,70],"their":[30],"impact":[31],"on":[32,126],"these":[33],"biases":[34,77,138],"remains":[35],"unexplored.We":[36],"present":[37],"the":[38,64,144],"first":[39],"study":[41],"of":[42,146],"how":[43],"query":[44,122],"enhancement":[45,123],"affect":[47],"dense":[48],"biases,":[50,109,142],"evaluating":[51],"five":[52],"methods":[53,95],"across":[54,114],"six":[55],"retrievers.Our":[56,115],"findings":[57],"reveal":[58],"that":[59],"simple":[60,84],"LLMbased":[61],"achieves":[63],"strongest":[65],"aggregate":[66],"bias":[67,87,128],"reduction":[68,97],"(54%),":[69],"fails":[71],"under":[72],"adversarial":[73],"conditions":[74],"where":[75],"multiple":[76],"combine.Mechanistic":[78],"analysis":[79],"uncovers":[80],"two":[81],"distinct":[82],"mechanisms:":[83],"reduces":[86],"through":[88,98],"increased":[89],"score":[90],"variance,":[91],"while":[92],"pseudo-document":[93],"achieve":[96],"genuine":[99],"decorrelation":[100],"from":[101,139],"bias-inducing":[102],"features.However,":[103],"no":[104],"technique":[105],"uniformly":[106],"addresses":[107],"all":[108],"effects":[111],"vary":[112],"substantially":[113],"results":[116],"provide":[117],"practical":[118],"guidance":[119],"for":[120,149],"selecting":[121],"strategies":[124],"based":[125],"specific":[127],"vulnerabilities.More":[129],"broadly,":[130],"we":[131],"establish":[132],"a":[133],"taxonomy":[134],"distinguishing":[135],"query-document":[136],"interaction":[137],"document":[140],"encoding":[141],"clarifying":[143],"limits":[145],"query-side":[147],"interventions":[148],"debiasing":[150],"systems.":[152]},"counts_by_year":[],"updated_date":"2026-07-29T14:22:42.915294","created_date":"2026-07-02T00:00:00"}
