On Score Distributions and Relevance

We discuss the idea of modelling the statistical distributions of scores of documents, classified as relevant or non-relevant. Various specific combinations of standard statistical distributions have been used for this purpose. Some theoretical considerations indicate problems with some of the choices of pairs of distributions. Specifically, we revisit a generalisation of the well-known inverse relationship between recall and precision: some choices of pairs of distributions violate this generalised relationship. We identify the choices and the violations, and explore some of the consequences of this theoretical view. Reprinted from: G. Amati, C. Carpineto, G. Romano (eds), Advances in Information Retrieval, 29th European Conference on IR Research, ECIR 2007. Springer, 2007. (pp 40–51)

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: ECIR
• Authors: Stephen Robertson
• Keywords: Considerations Indicate Problems, ECIR 2007, Information Technology, Standard Statistical Distributions, Statistical Distributions