LaPraDoR: Unsupervised Pretrained Dense Retriever for Zero-Shot Text Retrieval
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Abstract (arXiv)
In this paper, we propose LaPraDoR, a pretrained dual-tower dense retriever that does not require any supervised data for training. Specifically, we first present Iterative Contrastive Learning (ICoL) that iteratively trains the query and document encoders with a cache mechanism. ICoL not only enlarges the number of negative instances but also keeps representations of cached examples in the same hidden space. We then propose Lexicon-Enhanced Dense Retrieval (LEDR) as a simple yet effective way to enhance dense retrieval with lexical matching. We evaluate LaPraDoR on the recently proposed BEIR benchmark, including 18 datasets of 9 zero-shot text retrieval tasks. Experimental results show that LaPraDoR achieves state-of-the-art performance compared with supervised dense retrieval models, and further analysis reveals the effectiveness of our training strategy and objectives. Compared to re-ranking, our lexicon-enhanced approach can be run in milliseconds (22.5x faster) while achieving superior performance.
Key facts. Cited by 24 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 44 of its 73 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 11 Mar 2022.
Builds on
44 of 73 references.
References · 44
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Citing papers per year: 2022: 12; 2023: 7; 2024: 2; 2025: 3.
24 papers.
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- 2022Text Embeddings by Weakly-Supervised Contrastive Pre-trainingcited by 1,216
- 2022RetroMAE: Pre-Training Retrieval-oriented Language Models Via Masked Auto-Encodercited by 118
- 2022An Efficiency Study for SPLADE Modelscited by 26
- 2022A Thorough Examination on Zero-shot Dense Retrievalcited by 21
- 2022SimANS: Simple Ambiguous Negatives Sampling for Dense Text Retrievalcited by 21
- 2022COCO-DR: Combating Distribution Shifts in Zero-Shot Dense Retrieval with Contrastive and Distributionally Robust Learningcited by 19
- 2024Contextual Document Embeddingscited by 19
- 2022Mixed-modality Representation Learning and Pre-training for Joint Table-and-Text Retrieval in OpenQAcited by 17
- 2022LED: Lexicon-Enlightened Dense Retriever for Large-Scale Retrievalcited by 15
- 2023BEIR-PL: Zero Shot Information Retrieval Benchmark for the Polish Languagecited by 15
- 2023Resources for Brewing BEIR: Reproducible Reference Models and an Official Leaderboardcited by 15
- 2022Low-Resource Dense Retrieval for Open-Domain Question Answering: A Comprehensive Surveycited by 14
12 more
- 2022MASTER: Multi-task Pre-trained Bottlenecked Masked Autoencoders are Better Dense Retrieverscited by 7
- 2025Prior-Fitted Networks Scale to Larger Datasets When Treated as Weak Learnerscited by 7
- 2023I3: Intent-Introspective Retrieval Conditioned on Instructionscited by 5
- 2023Unsupervised Pretraining for Fact Verification by Language Model Distillationcited by 5
- 2022Disentangled Modeling of Domain and Relevance for Adaptable Dense Retrievalcited by 4
- 2025Revela: Dense Retriever Learning via Language Modelingcited by 3
- 2022Unsupervised Domain Adaptation for Sparse Retrieval by Filling Vocabulary and Word Frequency Gapscited by 2
- 2023Generate to Understand for Representationcited by 0
- 2023Rule By Example: Harnessing Logical Rules for Explainable Hate Speech Detectioncited by 0
- 2023Unsupervised Domain Adaption for Neural Information Retrievalcited by 0
- 2024Domain Adaptation of Multilingual Semantic Search -- Literature Reviewcited by 0
- 2025Zero-Shot Contextual Embeddings via Offline Synthetic Corpus Generationcited by 0
- 2025Zero-Shot Contextual Embeddings via Offline Synthetic Corpus Generation30 Jun 2025
- 2025Revela: Dense Retriever Learning via Language Modeling19 Jun 2025
- 2025Prior-Fitted Networks Scale to Larger Datasets When Treated as Weak Learners3 Mar 2025
- 2024Contextual Document Embeddings3 Oct 2024
- 2024Domain Adaptation of Multilingual Semantic Search -- Literature Review5 Feb 2024
- 2023Unsupervised Domain Adaption for Neural Information Retrieval13 Oct 2023
- 2023Unsupervised Pretraining for Fact Verification by Language Model Distillation28 Sep 2023
- 2023I3: Intent-Introspective Retrieval Conditioned on Instructions19 Aug 2023
- 2023Rule By Example: Harnessing Logical Rules for Explainable Hate Speech Detection24 Jul 2023
- 2023Generate to Understand for Representation14 Jun 2023
- 2023Resources for Brewing BEIR: Reproducible Reference Models and an Official Leaderboard13 Jun 2023
- 2023BEIR-PL: Zero Shot Information Retrieval Benchmark for the Polish Language31 May 2023
12 more
- 2022MASTER: Multi-task Pre-trained Bottlenecked Masked Autoencoders are Better Dense Retrievers15 Dec 2022
- 2022Text Embeddings by Weakly-Supervised Contrastive Pre-training7 Dec 2022
- 2022Unsupervised Domain Adaptation for Sparse Retrieval by Filling Vocabulary and Word Frequency Gaps8 Nov 2022
- 2022COCO-DR: Combating Distribution Shifts in Zero-Shot Dense Retrieval with Contrastive and Distributionally Robust Learning27 Oct 2022
- 2022SimANS: Simple Ambiguous Negatives Sampling for Dense Text Retrieval21 Oct 2022
- 2022Mixed-modality Representation Learning and Pre-training for Joint Table-and-Text Retrieval in OpenQA11 Oct 2022
- 2022LED: Lexicon-Enlightened Dense Retriever for Large-Scale Retrieval29 Aug 2022
- 2022Disentangled Modeling of Domain and Relevance for Adaptable Dense Retrieval11 Aug 2022
- 2022Low-Resource Dense Retrieval for Open-Domain Question Answering: A Comprehensive Survey5 Aug 2022
- 2022An Efficiency Study for SPLADE Models8 Jul 2022
- 2022RetroMAE: Pre-Training Retrieval-oriented Language Models Via Masked Auto-Encoder24 May 2022
- 2022A Thorough Examination on Zero-shot Dense Retrieval27 Apr 2022
- 2022Text Embeddings by Weakly-Supervised Contrastive Pre-trainingcited by 1,216
- 2022RetroMAE: Pre-Training Retrieval-oriented Language Models Via Masked Auto-Encodercited by 118
- 2022An Efficiency Study for SPLADE Modelscited by 26
- 2022A Thorough Examination on Zero-shot Dense Retrievalcited by 21
- 2022SimANS: Simple Ambiguous Negatives Sampling for Dense Text Retrievalcited by 21
- 2022COCO-DR: Combating Distribution Shifts in Zero-Shot Dense Retrieval with Contrastive and Distributionally Robust Learningcited by 19
- 2024Contextual Document Embeddingscited by 19
- 2022Mixed-modality Representation Learning and Pre-training for Joint Table-and-Text Retrieval in OpenQAcited by 17
- 2022LED: Lexicon-Enlightened Dense Retriever for Large-Scale Retrievalcited by 15
- 2023BEIR-PL: Zero Shot Information Retrieval Benchmark for the Polish Languagecited by 15
- 2023Resources for Brewing BEIR: Reproducible Reference Models and an Official Leaderboardcited by 15
- 2022Low-Resource Dense Retrieval for Open-Domain Question Answering: A Comprehensive Surveycited by 14
12 most cited of 24 All 24 (JSON)
- 2025Zero-Shot Contextual Embeddings via Offline Synthetic Corpus Generation30 Jun 2025
- 2025Revela: Dense Retriever Learning via Language Modeling19 Jun 2025
- 2025Prior-Fitted Networks Scale to Larger Datasets When Treated as Weak Learners3 Mar 2025
- 2024Contextual Document Embeddings3 Oct 2024
- 2024Domain Adaptation of Multilingual Semantic Search -- Literature Review5 Feb 2024
- 2023Unsupervised Domain Adaption for Neural Information Retrieval13 Oct 2023
- 2023Unsupervised Pretraining for Fact Verification by Language Model Distillation28 Sep 2023
- 2023I3: Intent-Introspective Retrieval Conditioned on Instructions19 Aug 2023
- 2023Rule By Example: Harnessing Logical Rules for Explainable Hate Speech Detection24 Jul 2023
- 2023Generate to Understand for Representation14 Jun 2023
- 2023Resources for Brewing BEIR: Reproducible Reference Models and an Official Leaderboard13 Jun 2023
- 2023BEIR-PL: Zero Shot Information Retrieval Benchmark for the Polish Language31 May 2023
12 newest of 24 All 24 (JSON)