arXiv:2409.17840cs.AI2024-09NeurIPS被引 7

提出新方法检测并量化因果推断中的混杂效应,无需假设无隐藏混杂变量。

Detecting and Measuring Confounding Using Causal Mechanism Shifts

  • 基于因果机制变化检测混杂,不依赖传统假设
  • 可区分可观测与不可观测混杂的影响程度
  • 适合需要严谨因果分析的研究者使用

从数据中检测和度量混杂效应是因果推断的关键挑战。现有方法通常假设因果充分性,忽略未观测混杂变量的存在,而这一假设既不现实也难以实证检验。此外,这些方法对潜在因果生成过程施加强参数假设以保证混杂变量的可识别性。本文放松了因果充分性和参数假设,结合非独立同分布(non-i.i.d.)数据下的因果发现与混杂分析进展,提出一套完整的混杂检测与度量方法。考虑多种混杂定义,设计针对性方法实现三大目标:(i) 检测并度量一组变量间的混杂;(ii) 分离可观测与未观测混杂效应;(iii) 比较不同变量集间混杂偏倚的相对强度。我们证明了混杂度量应具备的有用性质,并提出了满足这些性质的度量方法。实验结果支持理论分析。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Detecting and measuring confounding effects from data is a key challenge in causal inference. Existing methods frequently assume causal sufficiency, disregarding the presence of unobserved confounding variables. Causal sufficiency is both unrealistic and empirically untestable. Additionally, existing methods make strong parametric assumptions about the underlying causal generative process to guarantee the identifiability of confounding variables. Relaxing the causal sufficiency and parametric assumptions and leveraging recent advancements in causal discovery and confounding analysis with non-i.i.d. data, we propose a comprehensive approach for detecting and measuring confounding. We consider various definitions of confounding and introduce tailored methodologies to achieve three objectives: (i) detecting and measuring confounding among a set of variables, (ii) separating observed and unobserved confounding effects, and (iii) understanding the relative strengths of confounding bias between different sets of variables. We present useful properties of a confounding measure and present measures that satisfy those properties. Empirical results support the theoretical analysis.

因果推断混杂效应因果发现

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