arXiv Computation and Language

Analyzing performance of Retrieval Augmented Generation models for Question Answering Tasks

arXiv AI
Jun 8

The Masked Advantage: Uncovering Local-Language Access to Cultural Knowledge in LLMs

arXiv:2606. 07422v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language models are increasingly used to answer culturally grounded questions across languages, yet it remains unclear whether local cultural knowledge is better accessed through English or the local language.

By Yang Zhang, Xiao Fei, Amr Mohamed, Sarah Almeida Carneiro, Mersin Konomi, Mingmeng Geng, Ahmed Asaad, Guokan Shang, Michalis Vazirgiannis
arXiv AI
Sep 17

Knowledge-Graph Based Augmentation versus Retrieval Augmented Generation for Cultural-Related Question Answering

The paper compares Knowledge-Graph Based Augmentation (Graph-RAG) with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) for answering culturally specific questions. Using the LatamQA dataset, Graph-RAG, built automatically from Wikipedia via KGGen, matches RAG performance and reduces the base LLM’s error by 72% with a standard KG and 78% with a benchmark-aware variant. The approach also transfers zero‑shot to Portuguese, showing multilingual applicability.

By Pablo Poulenard, Yannis Karmim, Valentin Barri\`ere
arXiv AI
Sep 7

A Systematic Evaluation of Cross-Lingual Consistency Enhancement Methods in Multilingual Language Models

The paper presents a unified evaluation of cross‑lingual consistency (CLC) enhancement methods for multilingual language models, covering inference‑time interventions and post‑training approaches across three model families and three closed‑form benchmarks. Results indicate that post‑training methods, especially direct distribution alignment, consistently improve CLC across all model‑dataset combinations, while other methods are more sensitive to answer format and language coverage. The study also examines the impact of CLC enhancement on culturally diverse question answering, finding no systematic degradation in controlled settings but occasional accuracy drops in open‑ended generation, particularly for non‑English responses.

By Jirui Qi, Mingyang Wang, Hinrich Sch\"utze, Raquel Fern\'andez, Arianna Bisazza
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 25

Language Specific Knowledge: Do Models Know Better in X than in English?

The paper introduces the concept of Language Specific Knowledge (LSK), showing that multilingual language models can answer certain queries better when prompted in a language other than English, sometimes even in low‑resource languages. It defines a language‑selection problem and presents several baseline methods, including the authors’ LSKExtractor, to empirically demonstrate that choosing the optimal language can improve question‑answering performance across datasets covering cultural and social norms. Experiments reveal non‑intuitive mappings, such as Gemma models excelling on Chinese and Middle Eastern topics in Spanish and Qwen models performing best on authority and responsibility queries in Arabic and Chinese.

By Ishika Agarwal, Nimet Beyza Bozdag, Dilek Hakkani-T\"ur
arXiv Computation and Language
Aug 31

CultureConverse: A Multilingual Multi-turn Simulation Harness for Culturally Grounded Assistance in East and Southeast Asia

arXiv:2608.28405v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Current cultural evaluations for large language models (LLMs) often reduce culture to single-turn factual recall via MCQs, failing to capture a common...

By Bryan Chen Zhengyu Tan, Weihua Zheng, Thong T. Doan, Bich Ngoc Doan, Jia Wang Peh, Xiaoyuan Yi, Jing Yao, Xing Xie, Nancy F. Chen, Zhengyuan Liu, JinYeong Bak, Wafi Shamdi, Soo Kai Chie, Liew Yu Siong, Aina Azyyati Binti Mohamad Rezal, Lew Yan Yan Vanessa, Huadan Wu, Dylan Raharja, Nadya Yuki Wangsajaya, Akane Fukushige, Kazushi Kato, Koji Inoue, Tatsuya Kawahara, Jaehyung Seo, Dongjun Kim, Seungyoon Lee, Zi Haur Pang, Rui Yang Tan, Charibeth Ko Cheng, Maria Regina Justina Estuar, Jann Railey Montalan, Pham Minh Duc, Roy Ka-Wei Lee
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 14

EAR: Entity-Aware Partitioning Approach for Retrieval-Augmented Generation Development

The paper introduces EAR, an Entity‑Aware Partitioning approach that improves retrieval‑augmented generation for multiple‑choice question answering by extracting normalized surface anchors from questions, answers, and the corpus. EAR retrieves local windows around matching anchors and can attach a larger parent passage via an extractive summary, reducing retrieved words by 37.5‑40.2% compared to fixed‑size chunks. Experiments on a cleaned MMLU‑style subset with Mistral, Gemma, and DeepSeek show modest accuracy changes, none statistically significant, highlighting EAR’s methodological contribution of compact, inspectable retrieval units.

By Cenab Batu Bora, Oylum Alatl{\i}, Sebnem Bora, Oguz Dikenelli
arXiv Computation and Language
3d ago

LLMs Infer Cultural Context but Fail to Apply It When Responding

The paper introduces CAPRI, a dataset of conversations designed to test whether large language models (LLMs) can adapt their responses to users’ cultural backgrounds. Experiments show that while LLMs can infer a user’s cultural context and recall relevant conventions, they frequently fail to apply this knowledge when generating answers unless explicitly prompted to do so. The study also finds that LLMs’ cultural adaptations improve as more cues are provided, yet their default priors are not culture‑neutral and sometimes reflect the model’s country of origin.

By Yisong Miao, Jian Zhu, Vered Shwartz