PLABA-EVAL: A Multi-Dimensional, In-Context Sentence Readability Dataset for Medical Text

Kexin Bian, Su-Youn Yoon, Mamoru Komachi


Abstract
We present an in-context framework for assessing readability that separates reading difficulty into multiple subjective dimensions. Participants read biomedical abstracts with full-document access and provide sentence-level ratings of Processing Ease and Perceived Understanding, followed by an open-book multiple-choice comprehension check. Using this protocol, we release PLABA-EVAL, a dataset of 78 biomedical abstracts and expert plain-language adaptations (609 sentences), annotated by three independent raters per document. Analyses show that Ease and Understanding are strongly related but not interchangeable, and that perceived understanding aligns more closely with open-book comprehension performance. We provide baseline linguistic analyses for both dimensions, illustrating how the dataset supports work on readability, simplification, and sentence-level difficulty modeling.
Anthology ID:
2026.readi-1.4
Volume:
Proceedings of the Joint Workshop on Readability and Text Simplification (READIxTSAR) @ LREC 2026
Month:
May
Year:
2026
Address:
Palma, Mallorca (Spain)
Editors:
Matthew Shardlow, Thomas François, Raquel Amaro, Jorge Baptista, Rémi Cardon, Eugénio Ribeiro, Horacio Saggion, Regina Stodden, Amalia Todirascu, Rodrigo Wilkens
Venues:
READI | TSAR | WS
SIG:
Publisher:
ELRA Language Resources Association (ELRA)
Note:
Pages:
49–60
Language:
External URL:
https://lrec.elra.info/lrec2026-ws-readixtsar-04
DOI:
10.63317/2y6bctu9etkj
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Kexin Bian, Su-Youn Yoon, and Mamoru Komachi. 2026. PLABA-EVAL: A Multi-Dimensional, In-Context Sentence Readability Dataset for Medical Text. In Proceedings of the Joint Workshop on Readability and Text Simplification (READIxTSAR) @ LREC 2026, pages 49–60, Palma, Mallorca (Spain). ELRA Language Resources Association (ELRA).
Cite (Informal):
PLABA-EVAL: A Multi-Dimensional, In-Context Sentence Readability Dataset for Medical Text (Bian et al., READI-TSAR 2026)
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