When Index Term Probability Violates the Classical Probability Axioms Quantum Probability can be a Necessary Theory for Information Retrieval
This addresses foundational issues in information retrieval for researchers, but it is incremental as it builds on existing probabilistic models.
The paper tackles the problem of probabilistic models in information retrieval where observed relevance probabilities from distinct sources may not fit a single classical event space, introducing results to check this and proposing quantum probability as an alternative framework.
Probabilistic models require the notion of event space for defining a probability measure. An event space has a probability measure which ensues the Kolmogorov axioms. However, the probabilities observed from distinct sources, such as that of relevance of documents, may not admit a single event space thus causing some issues. In this article, some results are introduced for ensuring whether the observed prob- abilities of relevance of documents admit a single event space. More- over, an alternative framework of probability is introduced, thus chal- lenging the use of classical probability for ranking documents. Some reflections on the convenience of extending the classical probabilis- tic retrieval toward a more general framework which encompasses the issues are made.