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Constructing Hard-Positive Query-Document Pairs for Dense Retrieval via Phrase Representativeness

sigir26-209 · Full research paper · Zhanyu Wu, Richong Zhang, Zhijie Nie
Dense Bi-Encoder Training and Repres · 100%
Abstract

Dense retrieval usually fails in two ways: ranking non-relevant documents too high, or ranking relevant documents too low. We focus on the second case from the query side: documents that are genuinely relevant but receive low retrieval scores under certain query formulations, forming hard-positive query–document pairs. To study this failure mode systematically, we build on recent token-alignment work, which analyzes vocabulary logits obtained by projecting retriever representations through an architecture-specific token prediction head and shows that low overlap among top-ranked logit tokens can cause relevant documents to be scored low. This suggests a practical route to hard positives: generate relevant queries that rely on document phrases that receive low ranks under these logits. We therefore define model-specific Token and Phrase Representativeness Scores (TRS/PRS) to discover tokens and key phrases that appear in a document but are poorly expressed by its embedding. Using high-PRS phrases as anchors, we automatically construct challenging yet relevant queries, yielding hard-positive query–document pairs. Experiments across multiple retrievers and datasets show that PRS-anchored queries induce substantially larger drops for dense retrievers than other query construction strategies, revealing a dense-specific weakness. Moreover, when mixed with standard hard negatives during contrastive fine-tuning, these hard positives improve retrieval on our constructed hard-positive benchmark and can also improve standard in-domain retrieval benchmarks. Our code is publicly available at https://github.com/wzy2001wzy/HardPositive.

Assigned reviewers

#ReviewerMatchWhy (closest evidence publications in the taxonomy)
1 Ruqing Zhang 0001
48
78 PROP: Pre-training with Representative Words Prediction for Ad-hoc Retrieval (2021) Sparse and Dense Retrieval Encoders
78 B-PROP: Bootstrapped Pre-training with Representative Words Prediction for Ad-hoc Retrieval (2021) Sparse and Dense Retrieval Encoders
75 Pre-train a Discriminative Text Encoder for Dense Retrieval via Contrastive Span Prediction (2022) Dense Bi-Encoder Training and Representation Learning
2 Zheng Zhang 0006
46
46 Enhancing Cross-Modal Retrieval via Visual-Textual Prompt Hashing (2024) Cross-Modal Hashing and Quantization
46 Semantics-Reconstructing Hashing for Cross-Modal Retrieval (2020) Cross-Modal Hashing and Quantization
46 Cross-Domain Transfer Hashing for Efficient Cross-Modal Retrieval (2024) Cross-Modal Hashing and Quantization

Area chair

Area chairMatch
Chenyan Xiong 42
Area-chair candidates (2)
Chenyan Xiong assigned 4215 papers
Xiaoyi Zeng 3811 papers

Candidates from the panel ranked by match score

#ReviewerMatchLoadWhy
1 Xiao Wang 0043 50 3
71 Unsupervised Dense Retrieval with Conterfactual Contrastive Learning (2026) Robustness and Adversarial IR
54 An Inspection of the Reproducibility and Replicability of TCT-ColBERT (2022) Learned Sparse Retrieval Efficiency
2 Xueguang Ma 50 3
70 To Interpolate or not to Interpolate: PRF, Dense and Sparse Retrievers (2022) Query Reformulation and Expansion
65 Fine-Tuning LLaMA for Multi-Stage Text Retrieval (2024) Sparse and Dense Retrieval Encoders
3 Xinyu Ma 0001 50 3
78 PROP: Pre-training with Representative Words Prediction for Ad-hoc Retrieval (2021) Sparse and Dense Retrieval Encoders
78 Pre-train a Discriminative Text Encoder for Dense Retrieval via Contrastive Span Prediction (2022) Sparse and Dense Retrieval Encoders
4 Ruqing Zhang 0001 assigned 48 3
78 PROP: Pre-training with Representative Words Prediction for Ad-hoc Retrieval (2021) Sparse and Dense Retrieval Encoders
78 B-PROP: Bootstrapped Pre-training with Representative Words Prediction for Ad-hoc Retrieval (2021) Sparse and Dense Retrieval Encoders
5 Shengyao Zhuang 48 3
65 PromptReps: Prompting Large Language Models to Generate Dense and Sparse Representations for Zero-Shot Document Retrieval (2024) Text Embedding and Representation Learning
63 Dealing with Typos for BERT-based Passage Retrieval and Ranking (2021) Robustness and Adversarial IR
6 Sheng-Chieh Lin 47 3
75 Aggretriever: A Simple Approach to Aggregate Textual Representations for Robust Dense Passage Retrieval (2023) Dense Bi-Encoder Training and Representation Learning
75 A Dense Representation Framework for Lexical and Semantic Matching (2023) Dense Bi-Encoder Training and Representation Learning
7 Jurek Leonhardt 47 3
57 Efficient Neural Ranking using Forward Indexes (2022) Learned Sparse Retrieval Efficiency
57 Efficient Neural Ranking Using Forward Indexes and Lightweight Encoders (2024) Learned Sparse Retrieval Efficiency
8 Jingtao Zhan 46 3
100 Optimizing Dense Retrieval Model Training with Hard Negatives (2021) Dense Bi-Encoder Training and Representation Learning
78 Scaling Laws For Dense Retrieval (2024) Sparse and Dense Retrieval Encoders
9 Zheng Zhang 0006 assigned 46 3
46 Enhancing Cross-Modal Retrieval via Visual-Textual Prompt Hashing (2024) Cross-Modal Hashing and Quantization
46 Semantics-Reconstructing Hashing for Cross-Modal Retrieval (2020) Cross-Modal Hashing and Quantization
10 Antonio Mallia 45 3
54 Learning Passage Impacts for Inverted Indexes (2021) Learned Sparse Retrieval Efficiency
54 Improved Learned Sparse Retrieval with Corpus-Specific Vocabularies (2024) Learned Sparse Retrieval Efficiency
11 Franco Maria Nardini 45 3
54 Expansion via Prediction of Importance with Contextualization (2020) Sparse and Dense Retrieval Encoders
48 ReNeuIR at SIGIR 2026: The Fifth Workshop on Reaching Efficiency in Neural Information Retrieval (2026) Learned Sparse Retrieval Efficiency
12 Sebastian Bruch 0001 45 3
100 An Analysis of Fusion Functions for Hybrid Retrieval (2024) Dense Bi-Encoder Training and Representation Learning
48 Efficient Inverted Indexes for Approximate Retrieval over Learned Sparse Representations (2024) Learned Sparse Retrieval Efficiency
13 Jing Liu 0022 43 3
100 Dense Text Retrieval Based on Pretrained Language Models: A Survey (2024) Dense Bi-Encoder Training and Representation Learning
100 RocketQA: An Optimized Training Approach to Dense Passage Retrieval for Open-Domain Question Answering (2021) Dense Bi-Encoder Training and Representation Learning
14 Huiqiang Jiang 42 3
48 RetrievalAttention: Accelerating Long-Context LLM Inference via Vector Retrieval (2025) Learned Sparse Retrieval Efficiency
48 LLMLingua: Compressing Prompts for Accelerated Inference of Large Language Models (2023) Learned Sparse Retrieval Efficiency
15 Yuchen Li 0006 42 3
47 S2phere: Semi-Supervised Pre-training for Web Search over Heterogeneous Learning to Rank Data (2023) Web-Scale Learning to Rank
47 RankElectra: Semi-supervised Pre-training of Learning-to-Rank Electra for Web-scale Search (2025) Web-Scale Learning to Rank
17 Meiyu Liang 42 3
46 Unsupervised Multimodal Graph Contrastive Semantic Anchor Space Dynamic Knowledge Distillation Network for Cross-Media Hash Retrieval (2024) Cross-Modal Hashing and Quantization
46 Deep Unsupervised Momentum Contrastive Hashing for Cross-modal Retrieval (2023) Cross-Modal Hashing and Quantization
18 Keping Bi 41 3
100 CAME: Competitively Learning a Mixture-of-Experts Model for First-stage Retrieval (2025) Dense Bi-Encoder Training and Representation Learning
58 L2R: Lifelong Learning for First-stage Retrieval with Backward-Compatible Representations (2023) Efficient Retrieval and Indexing Systems › Others
19 Fengling Li 0001 41 3
46 Noise-Robust Generative Hashing for Cross-Modal Retrieval (2026) Cross-Modal Hashing and Quantization
46 Prompt-Driven Bit Extension Hashing for Continual Cross-Modal Retrieval (2026) Cross-Modal Hashing and Quantization
20 Negar Arabzadeh 41 3
100 Learning Query-Space Document Representations for High-Recall Retrieval (2023) Dense Bi-Encoder Training and Representation Learning
54 Predicting Efficiency/Effectiveness Trade-offs for Dense vs. Sparse Retrieval Strategy Selection (2021) Efficient Retrieval and Indexing
21 Jinpeng Wang 0002 38 3
46 Webly Supervised Deep Attentive Quantization (2021) Cross-Modal Hashing and Quantization
46 Hugs Bring Double Benefits: Unsupervised Cross-Modal Hashing with Multi-granularity Aligned Transformers (2024) Cross-Modal Hashing and Quantization
22 Daiting Shi 38 3
78 Pre-trained Language Model for Web-scale Retrieval in Baidu Search (2021) Sparse and Dense Retrieval Encoders
61 Pre-trained Language Model-based Retrieval and Ranking for Web Search (2023) Learned Sparse Retrieval Efficiency
23 Yanzhao Zhang COI: co-author 38 3
71 Unsupervised Semantic Association Learning with Latent Label Inference (2021) Text Embedding and Representation Learning
45 ERank: Fusing Supervised Fine-Tuning and Reinforcement Learning for Effective and Efficient Text Reranking (2026) LLM-Based Reranking
25 Haokun Wen 38 3
40 FiRE: Enhancing MLLMs with Fine-Grained Context Learning for Complex Image Retrieval (2025) Universal Multimodal Embedding and MLLM Retrieval
40 Fine-grained Textual Inversion Network for Zero-Shot Composed Image Retrieval (2024) Universal Multimodal Embedding and MLLM Retrieval
26 Jieming Zhu 38 3
43 CoST: Contrastive Quantization based Semantic Tokenization for Generative Recommendation (2024) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs
43 Learning Multi-aspect Item Palette: A Semantic Tokenization Framework for Generative Recommendation (2026) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs
27 Hao Deng 0011 38 3
41 MMQ: Multimodal Mixture-of-Quantization Tokenization for Semantic ID Generation and User Behavioral Adaptation (2026) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs
40 REG4Rec: Reasoning-Enhanced Generative Model for Large-Scale Recommendation Systems (2026) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs
28 Venktesh V 38 3
58 TagRec++: Hierarchical Label Aware Attention Network for Question Categorization (2024) Text Embedding and Representation Learning
58 TagRec: Automated Tagging of Questions with Hierarchical Learning Taxonomy (2021) Text Embedding and Representation Learning
29 Chen Zhao 0013 37 3
71 Diffusion vs. Autoregressive Language Models: A Text Embedding Perspective (2025) Text Embedding and Representation Learning
66 Distantly-Supervised Dense Retrieval Enables Open-Domain Question Answering without Evidence Annotation (2021) Dense Bi-Encoder Training and Representation Learning
30 Shuaiqiang Wang 37 3
47 GS2P: A Generative Pre-trained Learning to Rank Model with Over-parameterization for Web-Scale Search (2023) Web-Scale Learning to Rank
47 GS2P: a generative pre-trained learning to rank model with over-parameterization for web-scale search (2024) Web-Scale Learning to Rank
31 Andrew Parry 37 3
52 "In-Context Learning" or: How I learned to stop worrying and love "Applied Information Retrieval" (2024) Sparse and Dense Retrieval Encoders
42 MechIR: A Mechanistic Interpretability Framework for Information Retrieval (2025) Robustness and Adversarial IR
32 Yong He 0009 37 3
41 Uncertainty-based Heterogeneous Privileged Knowledge Distillation for Recommendation System (2023) Domain Adaptation and Disentangled Representation for CDR
41 The Devil is in the Sources! Knowledge Enhanced Cross-Domain Recommendation in an Information Bottleneck Perspective (2024) Domain Adaptation and Disentangled Representation for CDR