Users of search systems often reformulate their queries by adding query terms to reflect their evolving information need or to more precisely express their information need when the system fails to surface relevant content. Analyzing these query reformulations can inform us about both system and user behavior. In this work, we study a special category of query reformulations that involve specifying demographic group attributes, such as gender, as part of the reformulated query (e.g., "olympic 2021 soccer results" to "olympic 2021 women's soccer results"). There are many ways a query, the search results, and a demographic attribute such as gender may relate, leading us to hypothesize different causes for these reformulation patterns, such as under-representation on the original result page or based on the linguistic theory of markedness. This paper reports on an observational study of gender-specializing query reformulations -- their contexts and effects -- as a lens on the relationship between system results and gender, based on large-scale search log data from Bing. We find that these reformulations sometimes correct for and other times reinforce gender representation on the original result page, but typically yield better access to the ultimately-selected results. The prevalence of these reformulations -- and which gender they skew towards -- differ by topical context. However, we do not find evidence that either group under-representation or markedness alone adequately explains these reformulations. We hope that future research will use such reformulations as a probe for deeper investigation into gender (and other demographic) representation on the search result page.

翻译：搜索系统用户常常通过添加查询词来重构查询，以反映其不断变化的信息需求，或在系统未能呈现相关内容时更精确地表达需求。分析这些查询重构可揭示系统和用户行为。本研究聚焦一种特殊查询重构类型——在重构查询中添加性别等人口统计群体属性（例如，将“2021年奥运足球赛果”改为“2021年女子奥运足球赛果”）。查询、搜索结果与性别等人口统计属性之间存在多种关联方式，从而引出我们对不同重构动因的假设：例如原始结果页面的表征不足，或基于语言学标记理论。本文基于Bing大规模搜索日志数据开展观测研究，以性别专业化查询重构（其背景与影响）为切入点，探究系统结果与性别间的关系。我们发现，这些重构有时修正、有时强化原始结果页面的性别表征，但通常能提升最终选择结果的访问效率。此类重构的普遍程度及性别偏向因主题语境而异。然而，现有证据尚不足以证明表征不足或标记理论可作为单一解释机制。我们期待未来研究能以此类重构为探针，深入考察搜索结果页面中的性别（及其他人口统计属性）表征问题。