@inproceedings{ho-etal-2025-table,
title = "Table-Text Alignment: Explaining Claim Verification Against Tables in Scientific Papers",
author = "Ho, Xanh and
Kumar, Sunisth and
Wu, Yun-Ang and
Boudin, Florian and
Takasu, Atsuhiro and
Aizawa, Akiko",
editor = "Christodoulopoulos, Christos and
Chakraborty, Tanmoy and
Rose, Carolyn and
Peng, Violet",
booktitle = "Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2025",
month = nov,
year = "2025",
address = "Suzhou, China",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2025.findings-emnlp.135/",
pages = "2509--2517",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-335-7",
abstract = "Scientific claim verification against tables typically requires predicting whether a claim is supported or refuted given a table. However, we argue that predicting the final label alone is insufficient: it reveals little about the model{'}s reasoning and offers limited interpretability. To address this, we reframe table{--}text alignment as an explanation task, requiring models to identify the table cells essential for claim verification. We build a new dataset by extending the SciTab benchmark with human-annotated cell-level rationales. Annotators verify the claim label and highlight the minimal set of cells needed to support their decision. After the annotation process, we utilize the collected information and propose a taxonomy for handling ambiguous cases. Our experiments show that (i) incorporating table alignment information improves claim verification performance, and (ii) most LLMs, while often predicting correct labels, fail to recover human-aligned rationales, suggesting that their predictions do not stem from faithful reasoning."
}<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<modsCollection xmlns="http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3">
<mods ID="ho-etal-2025-table">
<titleInfo>
<title>Table-Text Alignment: Explaining Claim Verification Against Tables in Scientific Papers</title>
</titleInfo>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Xanh</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Ho</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Sunisth</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Kumar</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Yun-Ang</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Wu</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Florian</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Boudin</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Atsuhiro</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Takasu</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Akiko</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Aizawa</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<originInfo>
<dateIssued>2025-11</dateIssued>
</originInfo>
<typeOfResource>text</typeOfResource>
<relatedItem type="host">
<titleInfo>
<title>Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2025</title>
</titleInfo>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Christos</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Christodoulopoulos</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Tanmoy</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Chakraborty</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Carolyn</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Rose</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Violet</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Peng</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<originInfo>
<publisher>Association for Computational Linguistics</publisher>
<place>
<placeTerm type="text">Suzhou, China</placeTerm>
</place>
</originInfo>
<genre authority="marcgt">conference publication</genre>
<identifier type="isbn">979-8-89176-335-7</identifier>
</relatedItem>
<abstract>Scientific claim verification against tables typically requires predicting whether a claim is supported or refuted given a table. However, we argue that predicting the final label alone is insufficient: it reveals little about the model’s reasoning and offers limited interpretability. To address this, we reframe table–text alignment as an explanation task, requiring models to identify the table cells essential for claim verification. We build a new dataset by extending the SciTab benchmark with human-annotated cell-level rationales. Annotators verify the claim label and highlight the minimal set of cells needed to support their decision. After the annotation process, we utilize the collected information and propose a taxonomy for handling ambiguous cases. Our experiments show that (i) incorporating table alignment information improves claim verification performance, and (ii) most LLMs, while often predicting correct labels, fail to recover human-aligned rationales, suggesting that their predictions do not stem from faithful reasoning.</abstract>
<identifier type="citekey">ho-etal-2025-table</identifier>
<location>
<url>https://aclanthology.org/2025.findings-emnlp.135/</url>
</location>
<part>
<date>2025-11</date>
<extent unit="page">
<start>2509</start>
<end>2517</end>
</extent>
</part>
</mods>
</modsCollection>
%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Table-Text Alignment: Explaining Claim Verification Against Tables in Scientific Papers
%A Ho, Xanh
%A Kumar, Sunisth
%A Wu, Yun-Ang
%A Boudin, Florian
%A Takasu, Atsuhiro
%A Aizawa, Akiko
%Y Christodoulopoulos, Christos
%Y Chakraborty, Tanmoy
%Y Rose, Carolyn
%Y Peng, Violet
%S Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2025
%D 2025
%8 November
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C Suzhou, China
%@ 979-8-89176-335-7
%F ho-etal-2025-table
%X Scientific claim verification against tables typically requires predicting whether a claim is supported or refuted given a table. However, we argue that predicting the final label alone is insufficient: it reveals little about the model’s reasoning and offers limited interpretability. To address this, we reframe table–text alignment as an explanation task, requiring models to identify the table cells essential for claim verification. We build a new dataset by extending the SciTab benchmark with human-annotated cell-level rationales. Annotators verify the claim label and highlight the minimal set of cells needed to support their decision. After the annotation process, we utilize the collected information and propose a taxonomy for handling ambiguous cases. Our experiments show that (i) incorporating table alignment information improves claim verification performance, and (ii) most LLMs, while often predicting correct labels, fail to recover human-aligned rationales, suggesting that their predictions do not stem from faithful reasoning.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2025.findings-emnlp.135/
%P 2509-2517
Markdown (Informal)
[Table-Text Alignment: Explaining Claim Verification Against Tables in Scientific Papers](https://aclanthology.org/2025.findings-emnlp.135/) (Ho et al., Findings 2025)
ACL