TABAS: Text augmentation based on attention score for text classification model

Abstract

To improve the performance of text classification, we propose text augmentation based on attention score (TABAS). We recognized that a criterion for selecting a replacement word rather than a random selection was necessary. Therefore, TABAS utilizes attention scores for text modification, processing only words with the same entity and part-of-speech tags to consider informational aspects. To verify this approach, we used two benchmark tasks. As a result, TABAS can significantly improve performance, both recurrent and convolutional neural networks. Furthermore, we confirm that it provides a practical way to develop deep-learning models by saving costs on making additional datasets.