Low-dimensional embeddings for interpretable anchor-based topic inference

Abstract

The anchor words algorithm performs provably efficient topic model inference by finding an approximate convex hull in a high-dimensional word co-occurrence space. However, the existing greedy algorithm often selects poor anchor words, reducing topic quality and interpretability. Rather than finding an approximate convex hull in a high-dimensional space, we propose to find an exact convex hull in a visualizable 2- or 3-dimensional space. Such low-dimensional embeddings both improve topics and clearly show users why the algorithm selects certain words.