Attribution Techniques for Mitigating Hallucinated Information in RAG Systems: A Survey

TL;DR

This survey reviews attribution-based techniques in Retrieval-Augmented Generation systems to mitigate hallucinations, providing a taxonomy, unified pipeline, and comparative analysis to guide future research and practical applications.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive taxonomy and unified pipeline for attribution techniques in RAG systems, along with systematic comparisons and practical guidelines.

Findings

Taxonomy of hallucination types in RAG systems

Unified pipeline for attribution techniques

Analysis of strengths and weaknesses of methods

Abstract

Large Language Models (LLMs)-based question answering (QA) systems play a critical role in modern AI, demonstrating strong performance across various tasks. However, LLM-generated responses often suffer from hallucinations, unfaithful statements lacking reliable references. Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) frameworks enhance LLM responses by incorporating external references but also introduce new forms of hallucination due to complex interactions between the retriever and generator. To address these challenges, researchers have explored attribution-based techniques that ensure responses are verifiably supported by retrieved content. Despite progress, a unified pipeline for these techniques, along with a clear taxonomy and systematic comparison of their strengths and weaknesses, remains lacking. A well-defined taxonomy is essential for identifying specific failure modes within RAG systems, while comparative analysis helps practitioners choose appropriate solutions based on hallucination types and application context. This survey investigates how attribution-based techniques are used within RAG systems to mitigate hallucinations and addresses the gap by: (i) outlining a taxonomy of hallucination types in RAG systems, (ii) presenting a unified pipeline for attribution techniques, (iii) reviewing techniques based on the hallucinations they target, and (iv) discussing strengths and weaknesses with practical guidelines. This work offers insights for future research and practical use of attribution techniques in RAG systems.