arXiv:2410.14812cs.CLstat.ME2024-10ICML被引 6

量化语言变化对读者认知的影响,解决信息偏差问题。

Isolated Causal Effects of Natural Language

  • 提出语言因果效应的估计框架,强调非焦点语言的精确逼近
  • 发现非焦点语言近似不佳会导致因果估计偏差
  • 提供评估敏感性的方法,适合研究语言影响的学者

随着语言技术广泛应用,理解语言变化如何影响读者认知与行为至关重要。本文引入一种形式化框架,用于估计特定语言干预(如事实错误)对读者信念等外部结果的孤立因果效应。核心挑战在于需准确近似干预之外的所有非焦点语言。基于遗漏变量偏误原理,本文提出评估非焦点语言近似质量及因果效应估计可靠性的度量。实验表明,非焦点语言近似不佳会因遗漏相关变量导致估计偏差,并可沿保真度与重叠性两个维度评估其敏感性。在半合成与真实数据上验证了框架正确恢复孤立效应的能力,展示了所提度量的有效性。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

As language technologies become widespread, it is important to understand how changes in language affect reader perceptions and behaviors. These relationships may be formalized as the isolated causal effect of some focal language-encoded intervention (e.g., factual inaccuracies) on an external outcome (e.g., readers' beliefs). In this paper, we introduce a formal estimation framework for isolated causal effects of language. We show that a core challenge of estimating isolated effects is the need to approximate all non-focal language outside of the intervention. Drawing on the principle of omitted variable bias, we provide measures for evaluating the quality of both non-focal language approximations and isolated effect estimates themselves. We find that poor approximation of non-focal language can lead to bias in the corresponding isolated effect estimates due to omission of relevant variables, and we show how to assess the sensitivity of effect estimates to such bias along the two key axes of fidelity and overlap. In experiments on semi-synthetic and real-world data, we validate the ability of our framework to correctly recover isolated effects and demonstrate the utility of our proposed measures.

语言影响因果推断偏差分析

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