Data Augmentation using Transformers and Similarity Measures for Improving Arabic Text Classification

The performance of learning models heavily relies on the availability and adequacy of training data. To address the dataset adequacy issue, researchers have extensively explored data augmentation (DA) as a promising approach. DA generates new data instances through transformations applied to the available data, thereby increasing dataset size and variability. This approach has enhanced model performance and accuracy, particularly in addressing class imbalance problems in classification tasks. However, few studies have explored DA for the Arabic language, relying on traditional approaches such as paraphrasing or noising-based techniques. In this paper, we propose a new Arabic DA method that employs the recent powerful modeling technique, namely the AraGPT-2, for the augmentation process. The generated sentences are evaluated in terms of context, semantics, diversity, and novelty using the Euclidean, cosine, Jaccard, and BLEU distances. Finally, the AraBERT transformer is used on sentiment classification tasks to evaluate the classification performance of the augmented Arabic dataset. The experiments were conducted on four sentiment Arabic datasets: AraSarcasm, ASTD, ATT, and MOVIE. The selected datasets vary in size, label number, and unbalanced classes. The results show that the proposed methodology enhanced the Arabic sentiment text classification on all datasets with an increase in F1 score by 4% in AraSarcasm, 6% in ASTD, 9% in ATT, and 13% in MOVIE.