An integrated framework for aspect category-based sentiment analysis using adaptive feature selection and category-aware decision fusion strategies

Purpose Aspect category-based sentiment analysis (ACSA) has been widely used in consumer preference mining and marketing strategy formulation. However, existing studies ignore the variability in features and the intrinsic correlation among diverse aspect categories in ACSA tasks. To address these problems, this paper aims to propose a novel integrated framework. Design/methodology/approach The integrated framework consists of three modules: text feature extraction and fusion, adaptive feature selection and category-aware decision fusion. First, text features from global and local views are extracted and fused to comprehensively capture the potential information in the different dimensions of the review text. Then, an adaptive feature selection strategy is devised for each aspect category to determine the optimal feature set. Finally, considering the intrinsic associations between aspect categories, a category-aware decision fusion strategy is constructed to enhance the performance of ACSA tasks. Findings Comparative experimental results demonstrate that the integrated framework can effectively detect aspect categories and their corresponding sentiment polarities from review texts, achieving a macroaveraged F1 score (Fmacro) of 72.38% and a weighted F1 score (F1) of 79.39%, with absolute gains of 2.93% to 27.36% and 4.35% to 20.36%, respectively, compared to the baselines. Originality/value This framework can simultaneously detect aspect categories and corresponding sentiment polarities from review texts, thereby assisting e-commerce enterprises in gaining insights into consumer preferences, prioritizing product improvements, and adjusting marketing strategies.