Dear Dr. Zhang,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

==============================

While the manuscript is promising, it omits critical methodological details, including multimodal feature integration, weighting logic, and computational overhead. It must also incorporate 2023–2025 state‑of‑the‑art comparisons and substantially strengthen the related‑work section with recent, high‑quality references.

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by May 03 2026 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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Academic Editor

PLOS One

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->?>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available??>

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

**********

4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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Reviewer #1: Sentiment analysis is an active research area for the last 2 decades. On this paper the others are worked on improved senti-BERT and Bilstm attention model. Overall, good work, but needs major changes for improvement.

1) introduction and related work is merged into one section. It is expected that introduction should be brief and concise. To many details are given in introduction. A separate related work section is expected highlighting research gap.

2) figure 2. the orange boxes in Bi-lstm attentions or not labelled. Also four condition in figure one or also not showing their purpose

3)fig 10 a. Also data proportion with values of 1,5, 10 percentages is not proper experimentation. For same fig, c, why not values of F1-score is not in percentages like accuracy.

4) table 3. Captions are written in poor way. It is better to change title of tables in improved way

5) How figure 3 is created the details should be Mentioned.

6) Equation Shares the similarity Between emojis, however what is the source behind this Index. Is it Adopted from cosine similarity Or any other method Because Coefficient Jacquard coefficient and Are usually used But this formula is different than all of those three.

7) Table 1: summary of experimental basic settings. There is no need to add the technical detailed description In so much. Caesar paragraph

8) In addition, related work should be improved a lot. As the references are very old. So it shows that the authors have not focused on this part. So the following research articles are recommended to be cited and more related work are explored and cited in the paper. The papers should be from top journals and published in last three years only. Few latest publications focusing on GNN, XAI etc are shared for discussion :

(2025). Fine-Grained Feature Extraction in Key Sentence Selection for Explainable Sentiment Classification Using BERT and CNN. IEEE Access.

(2025). Fpa-GCN: enhancing aspect sentiment triplet extraction with feature-rich prediction-aware graph convolutional networks. Applied Intelligence, 55(9), 740. doi: 10.1007/s10489-025-06313-8

(2024). A multi-message passing framework based on heterogeneous graphs in conversational emotion recognition. Neurocomputing, 569, 127109. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neucom.2023.127109

(2025). MLM-EOE: Automatic Depression Detection via Sentimental Annotation and Multi-Expert Ensemble. IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, 1-18. doi: 10.1109/TAFFC.2025.3585599

9) There are a number of symbols used in the manuscript. Therefore, it is recommended that a table of symbols should be added in the manuscript showing the list of all the symbols used in the manuscript along with their descriptions so that it should serve as a ready reference for the readers and it will help understandability as well.

10) The results should be compared with the existing studies in the relevant literature.

Reviewer #2:

1-While the abstract and introduction claim to have synergy by fusing multi-modal features like text, emoticons, and images, the methodology and experiments are narrowly focused on utilizing text only. You need to explain in detail how the image features are extracted and at what layer you inject them through the dynamic weighting strategy into Senti-BERT embeddings.

2- This is an important contribution, but the main challenge here is that there is no mathematical justification or sensitivity analysis on how much weight given to each dictionary terms. These weights should not be overfitted to a specific dataset.

3- The model is based on a Stacking integration of Senti-BERT and BiLSTM-Attention Provide analysis on overhead computation (Inference time, memory usage) In the case of a "multi-model stack" that is intersected with other cases, any marginal gain in accuracy needs to be weighed against added latency.

4-The current comparison does not include recent state-of-the-art (SOTA) benchmarks as of 2023–2024. Validate that your proposed architecture is still competitive by comparing your results other, more recent LLM based sentiment classifiers or hybrid GNN-BERT models

5- The paper contains a hierarchical attention mechanism on top of the BiLSTM. A note on whether this is referring to WORD-LEVEL and SENTENCE-LEVEL attention or some other hierarchy would also be helpful, as the current description is too vague for reproducibility.

6- The document indicates that you are using "stacking method" for integration but is insufficient in describing the meta-learner. Be explicit about whether it is a simple logistic regression, neural network or other classifier and explain why this particular meta-learner was selected as opposed to simple averaging or voting.

7- A better breakdown of the data sets used, specifically class distribution (positive vs negative vs neutral) If datasets have an imbalanced target, it is better to report the F1-scores or Area Under the Precision-Recall Curve (AUPRC) rather than accuracy alone to show a model's stability. ts)

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what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes:  AMJED ABBAS AHMED

**********

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To ensure your figures meet our technical requirements, please review our figure guidelines: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures

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Dear Dr. Zhang,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 16 2026 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

• A letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Issa Atoum

Academic Editor

PLOS One

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If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise.

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? -->?>

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available??>

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English??>

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

**********

Reviewer #1: Thank you . All my comments have been addressed by the authors in a proper manner. The manuscript is in much imporved version.

**********

what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

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Reviewer #1: No

**********

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To ensure your figures meet our technical requirements, please review our figure guidelines: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures

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NAAS will assess whether your figures meet our technical requirements by comparing each figure against our figure specifications.

Dear Dr. Zhang,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

==============================

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 18 2026 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

• A letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

As the corresponding author, your ORCID iD is verified in the submission system and will appear in the published article. PLOS supports the use of ORCID, and we encourage all coauthors to register for an ORCID iD and use it as well. Please encourage your coauthors to verify their ORCID iD within the submission system before final acceptance, as unverified ORCID iDs will not appear in the published article. Only  the individual author can complete the verification step; PLOS staff cannot  verify ORCID iDs on behalf of authors.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Issa Atoum

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Journal Requirements:

If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

To ensure your figures meet our technical requirements, please review our figure guidelines: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures

You may also use PLOS’s free figure tool, NAAS, to help you prepare publication quality figures: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures#loc-tools-for-figure-preparation.

NAAS will assess whether your figures meet our technical requirements by comparing each figure against our figure specifications.

Dear Dr. Zhang,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 28 2026 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

• A letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

As the corresponding author, your ORCID iD is verified in the submission system and will appear in the published article. PLOS supports the use of ORCID, and we encourage all coauthors to register for an ORCID iD and use it as well. Please encourage your coauthors to verify their ORCID iD within the submission system before final acceptance, as unverified ORCID iDs will not appear in the published article. Only  the individual author can complete the verification step; PLOS staff cannot  verify ORCID iDs on behalf of authors.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Issa Atoum

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Journal Requirements:

If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise.

Additional Editor Comments:

While the equations issues are met, the code issue remains. The Zenodo repository currently contains only duplicated figures and tables and does not meet the journal’s reproducibility requirements. The authors must provide the actual data used in the study, together with the complete executable code and, where appropriate, well-documented Jupyter notebooks.

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

To ensure your figures meet our technical requirements, please review our figure guidelines: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures

You may also use PLOS’s free figure tool, NAAS, to help you prepare publication quality figures: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures#loc-tools-for-figure-preparation.

NAAS will assess whether your figures meet our technical requirements by comparing each figure against our figure specifications.

Dear Dr. Zhang,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

==============================

The materials provided include a repository containing figure and table outputs, which are results rather than the underlying research data required for reproduction. If a separate Zenodo repository contains the complete source code and the raw data used to generate the reported results, please clearly identify this repository and ensure that it includes adequate documentation and instructions for reproducing all analyses, tables, and figures. At present, it is not possible to verify compliance with the journal's reproducibility requirements. Please treat this as a final opportunity to clarify and provide the necessary materials.

==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 26 2026 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

• A letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

As the corresponding author, your ORCID iD is verified in the submission system and will appear in the published article. PLOS supports the use of ORCID, and we encourage all coauthors to register for an ORCID iD and use it as well. Please encourage your coauthors to verify their ORCID iD within the submission system before final acceptance, as unverified ORCID iDs will not appear in the published article. Only  the individual author can complete the verification step; PLOS staff cannot  verify ORCID iDs on behalf of authors.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Issa Atoum

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Journal Requirements:

If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

To ensure your figures meet our technical requirements, please review our figure guidelines: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures

You may also use PLOS’s free figure tool, NAAS, to help you prepare publication quality figures: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures#loc-tools-for-figure-preparation.

NAAS will assess whether your figures meet our technical requirements by comparing each figure against our figure specifications.

Sentiment Classification Optimization Based on Improved Senti-BERT and BiLSTM-Attention

PONE-D-25-48304R5

Dear Dr. Zhang,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Kind regards,

Issa Atoum

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: