Answer-Reconstruction Search Density: Measuring the Query and Source Work Compressed by Conversational Answers

2026/07/21 by Benjamin Tannenbaum · 1 citation
#cs.IR

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Abstract

Conversational systems can collapse a visible sequence of web queries, result inspections, and source comparisons into a single synthesized answer. Existing retrieval metrics evaluate ranking, effort, or factual support, but they do not quantify the minimum conventional search work represented by a completed answer. We define answer-reconstruction search density (\ARSD): the minimum number of distinct query actions required, under a fixed and dated reconstruction policy, to support a target share of atomic retrievable answer units. A parallel page-density measure separates query compression from source compression.

Citations

• Do LLMs Benefit From Their Own Words?
• Long-form factuality in large language models
• WebGPT: Browser-assisted question-answering with human feedback

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