Separating Answers from Queries for Neural Reading Comprehension

Abstract: We present a novel neural architecture for answering queries, designed to optimally leverage explicit support in the form of query-answer memories. Our model is able to refine and update a given query while separately accumulating evidence for predicting the answer. Its architecture reflects this separation with dedicated embedding matrices and loosely connected information pathways (modules) for updating the query and accumulating evidence. This separation of responsibilities effectively decouples the search for query related support and the prediction of the answer. On recent benchmark datasets for reading comprehension, our model achieves state-of-the-art results. A qualitative analysis reveals that the model effectively accumulates weighted evidence from the query and over multiple support retrieval cycles which results in a robust answer prediction.