@inproceedings{liu-etal-2025-structural,
title = "Structural Reward Model: Enhancing Interpretability, Efficiency, and Scalability in Reward Modeling",
author = "Liu, Xiaoyu and
Liang, Di and
Shan, Hongyu and
Liu, Peiyang and
Liu, Yonghao and
Wu, Muling and
Li, Yuntao and
Wu, Xianjie and
Miao, Li and
Shen, Jiangrong and
Peng, Minlong",
editor = "Potdar, Saloni and
Rojas-Barahona, Lina and
Montella, Sebastien",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing: Industry Track",
month = nov,
year = "2025",
address = "Suzhou (China)",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2025.emnlp-industry.47/",
doi = "10.18653/v1/2025.emnlp-industry.47",
pages = "672--685",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-333-3",
abstract = "Reward Models (RMs) are key components for evaluating and guiding language model outputs. However, traditional scalar RMs often struggle with incorporating contextual and background information during inference, leading to incomplete evaluations. Generative RMs (GRMs) attempt to address these limitations by generating intermediate reasoning steps. Yet, their uncontrolled black-box nature and inefficiency due to sequential decoding hinder their industrial deployment. Industrial scenarios, such as search and recommendation systems, often involve single-domain tasks requiring evaluation along specific dimensions. In such contexts, diagnosing ``bad cases'' necessitates structured feedback to identify and optimize dimension-specific issues.In this paper, we propose the $\textbf{Structural Reward Model (SRM)}$, a modular and interpretable framework integrating side-branch models as auxiliary feature generators. By introducing fine-grained dimensions, SRMs enable interpretable and efficient evaluation, facilitating targeted diagnostics and optimization. This structured approach ensures adaptability and scalability for industrial applications.Through comprehensive experiments, we demonstrate that SRMs outperform scalar RMs and GRMs in robustness and alignment with human preferences. The modular design further supports efficient optimization for practical scenarios, allowing SRM to provide a practical reward modeling solution for industry."
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<abstract>Reward Models (RMs) are key components for evaluating and guiding language model outputs. However, traditional scalar RMs often struggle with incorporating contextual and background information during inference, leading to incomplete evaluations. Generative RMs (GRMs) attempt to address these limitations by generating intermediate reasoning steps. Yet, their uncontrolled black-box nature and inefficiency due to sequential decoding hinder their industrial deployment. Industrial scenarios, such as search and recommendation systems, often involve single-domain tasks requiring evaluation along specific dimensions. In such contexts, diagnosing “bad cases” necessitates structured feedback to identify and optimize dimension-specific issues.In this paper, we propose the Structural Reward Model (SRM), a modular and interpretable framework integrating side-branch models as auxiliary feature generators. By introducing fine-grained dimensions, SRMs enable interpretable and efficient evaluation, facilitating targeted diagnostics and optimization. This structured approach ensures adaptability and scalability for industrial applications.Through comprehensive experiments, we demonstrate that SRMs outperform scalar RMs and GRMs in robustness and alignment with human preferences. The modular design further supports efficient optimization for practical scenarios, allowing SRM to provide a practical reward modeling solution for industry.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Structural Reward Model: Enhancing Interpretability, Efficiency, and Scalability in Reward Modeling
%A Liu, Xiaoyu
%A Liang, Di
%A Shan, Hongyu
%A Liu, Peiyang
%A Liu, Yonghao
%A Wu, Muling
%A Li, Yuntao
%A Wu, Xianjie
%A Miao, Li
%A Shen, Jiangrong
%A Peng, Minlong
%Y Potdar, Saloni
%Y Rojas-Barahona, Lina
%Y Montella, Sebastien
%S Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing: Industry Track
%D 2025
%8 November
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C Suzhou (China)
%@ 979-8-89176-333-3
%F liu-etal-2025-structural
%X Reward Models (RMs) are key components for evaluating and guiding language model outputs. However, traditional scalar RMs often struggle with incorporating contextual and background information during inference, leading to incomplete evaluations. Generative RMs (GRMs) attempt to address these limitations by generating intermediate reasoning steps. Yet, their uncontrolled black-box nature and inefficiency due to sequential decoding hinder their industrial deployment. Industrial scenarios, such as search and recommendation systems, often involve single-domain tasks requiring evaluation along specific dimensions. In such contexts, diagnosing “bad cases” necessitates structured feedback to identify and optimize dimension-specific issues.In this paper, we propose the Structural Reward Model (SRM), a modular and interpretable framework integrating side-branch models as auxiliary feature generators. By introducing fine-grained dimensions, SRMs enable interpretable and efficient evaluation, facilitating targeted diagnostics and optimization. This structured approach ensures adaptability and scalability for industrial applications.Through comprehensive experiments, we demonstrate that SRMs outperform scalar RMs and GRMs in robustness and alignment with human preferences. The modular design further supports efficient optimization for practical scenarios, allowing SRM to provide a practical reward modeling solution for industry.
%R 10.18653/v1/2025.emnlp-industry.47
%U https://aclanthology.org/2025.emnlp-industry.47/
%U https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2025.emnlp-industry.47
%P 672-685
Markdown (Informal)
[Structural Reward Model: Enhancing Interpretability, Efficiency, and Scalability in Reward Modeling](https://aclanthology.org/2025.emnlp-industry.47/) (Liu et al., EMNLP 2025)
ACL
- Xiaoyu Liu, Di Liang, Hongyu Shan, Peiyang Liu, Yonghao Liu, Muling Wu, Yuntao Li, Xianjie Wu, Li Miao, Jiangrong Shen, and Minlong Peng. 2025. Structural Reward Model: Enhancing Interpretability, Efficiency, and Scalability in Reward Modeling. In Proceedings of the 2025 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing: Industry Track, pages 672–685, Suzhou (China). Association for Computational Linguistics.