@inproceedings{wang-etal-2026-look,
title = "Where to Look and What to Use: Retrieve{--}Localize{--}Generate for Long-Term Conversational Memory Question Answering",
author = "Wang, Yifan and
Lin, Xinkui and
Xu, Yongxiu and
Gao, Shen and
Yang, Ruochen and
Huang, Kun and
Wang, Yubin and
Wu, Jie and
Liu, Wei and
Luan, Jian and
Xu, Hongbo and
Shang, Shuo",
editor = "Lee, Hung-Yi and
Dev, Sunipa and
Li, Jessy and
Elliott, Desmond",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2026 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing",
month = oct,
year = "2026",
address = "Budapest, Hungary",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.emnlp-main.1211/",
pages = "27680--27701",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-459-0",
abstract = "Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) enables large language models (LLMs) to answer questions by accessing external knowledge and has been widely adopted for long-term conversational memory question answering. However, existing methods suffer from two key challenges: (1) fragmented evidence scattered across temporally distant sessions, and (2) noisy content within retrieved sessions that triggers the lost-in-the-middle effect. To address these challenges, we propose MemLoc, a unified Retrieve{--}Localize{--}Generate framework for long-term conversational memory QA. For retrieval, MemLoc decomposes each session into multi-granularity memory units and performs query routing via an inner-memory graph with entropy-based granularity selection. It further models cross-session semantic and temporal dependencies through a cross-memory graph, enabling coarse-to-fine retrieval of top-K relevant memory candidates. For localization, we introduce a reasoning-based evidence locator trained with Self-reflective Hint Policy Optimization (SHPO), which performs progressive refinement by extracting query-relevant fragments within memory units to suppress noise and reranking across candidates to remove redundancy, producing a compact evidence set with lightweight location IDs. For generation, these IDs act as precise grounding signals that guide the LLM to the correct memory positions, mitigating the lost-in-the-middle effect while preserving original contextual integrity. Extensive experiments on four benchmarks demonstrate that MemLoc achieves state-of-the-art retrieval accuracy and response quality while maintaining efficiency. Our code is available at: https://github.com/Nikol-coder/MemLoc ."
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<abstract>Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) enables large language models (LLMs) to answer questions by accessing external knowledge and has been widely adopted for long-term conversational memory question answering. However, existing methods suffer from two key challenges: (1) fragmented evidence scattered across temporally distant sessions, and (2) noisy content within retrieved sessions that triggers the lost-in-the-middle effect. To address these challenges, we propose MemLoc, a unified Retrieve–Localize–Generate framework for long-term conversational memory QA. For retrieval, MemLoc decomposes each session into multi-granularity memory units and performs query routing via an inner-memory graph with entropy-based granularity selection. It further models cross-session semantic and temporal dependencies through a cross-memory graph, enabling coarse-to-fine retrieval of top-K relevant memory candidates. For localization, we introduce a reasoning-based evidence locator trained with Self-reflective Hint Policy Optimization (SHPO), which performs progressive refinement by extracting query-relevant fragments within memory units to suppress noise and reranking across candidates to remove redundancy, producing a compact evidence set with lightweight location IDs. For generation, these IDs act as precise grounding signals that guide the LLM to the correct memory positions, mitigating the lost-in-the-middle effect while preserving original contextual integrity. Extensive experiments on four benchmarks demonstrate that MemLoc achieves state-of-the-art retrieval accuracy and response quality while maintaining efficiency. Our code is available at: https://github.com/Nikol-coder/MemLoc .</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Where to Look and What to Use: Retrieve–Localize–Generate for Long-Term Conversational Memory Question Answering
%A Wang, Yifan
%A Lin, Xinkui
%A Xu, Yongxiu
%A Gao, Shen
%A Yang, Ruochen
%A Huang, Kun
%A Wang, Yubin
%A Wu, Jie
%A Liu, Wei
%A Luan, Jian
%A Xu, Hongbo
%A Shang, Shuo
%Y Lee, Hung-Yi
%Y Dev, Sunipa
%Y Li, Jessy
%Y Elliott, Desmond
%S Proceedings of the 2026 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing
%D 2026
%8 October
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C Budapest, Hungary
%@ 979-8-89176-459-0
%F wang-etal-2026-look
%X Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) enables large language models (LLMs) to answer questions by accessing external knowledge and has been widely adopted for long-term conversational memory question answering. However, existing methods suffer from two key challenges: (1) fragmented evidence scattered across temporally distant sessions, and (2) noisy content within retrieved sessions that triggers the lost-in-the-middle effect. To address these challenges, we propose MemLoc, a unified Retrieve–Localize–Generate framework for long-term conversational memory QA. For retrieval, MemLoc decomposes each session into multi-granularity memory units and performs query routing via an inner-memory graph with entropy-based granularity selection. It further models cross-session semantic and temporal dependencies through a cross-memory graph, enabling coarse-to-fine retrieval of top-K relevant memory candidates. For localization, we introduce a reasoning-based evidence locator trained with Self-reflective Hint Policy Optimization (SHPO), which performs progressive refinement by extracting query-relevant fragments within memory units to suppress noise and reranking across candidates to remove redundancy, producing a compact evidence set with lightweight location IDs. For generation, these IDs act as precise grounding signals that guide the LLM to the correct memory positions, mitigating the lost-in-the-middle effect while preserving original contextual integrity. Extensive experiments on four benchmarks demonstrate that MemLoc achieves state-of-the-art retrieval accuracy and response quality while maintaining efficiency. Our code is available at: https://github.com/Nikol-coder/MemLoc .
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.emnlp-main.1211/
%P 27680-27701
Markdown (Informal)
[Where to Look and What to Use: Retrieve–Localize–Generate for Long-Term Conversational Memory Question Answering](https://aclanthology.org/2026.emnlp-main.1211/) (Wang et al., EMNLP 2026)
ACL
- Yifan Wang, Xinkui Lin, Yongxiu Xu, Shen Gao, Ruochen Yang, Kun Huang, Yubin Wang, Jie Wu, Wei Liu, Jian Luan, Hongbo Xu, and Shuo Shang. 2026. Where to Look and What to Use: Retrieve–Localize–Generate for Long-Term Conversational Memory Question Answering. In Proceedings of the 2026 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, pages 27680–27701, Budapest, Hungary. Association for Computational Linguistics.