提出新图对比学习框架,利用节点间相对相似性提升性能
Rethinking Graph Contrastive Learning through Relative Similarity Preservation
- 基于结构距离与标签一致性关系,构建相对相似性保持机制
- 在20个现有方法上均取得更好效果,跨同质/异质图表现稳定
- 适合关注图学习中语义关系建模的研究者和实践者
图对比学习(GCL)沿用计算机视觉范式,通过保留增强视图间的绝对相似性取得显著进展。然而,由于图的离散、非欧几里得特性,视图生成常破坏语义有效性,相似性验证不可靠。通过对11个真实图分析,我们发现普遍规律:标签一致性随结构距离增加而系统性下降,同质图中表现为平滑衰减,异质图中呈振荡衰减。基于随机游走理论,我们建立了该模式的理论保证,证明标签分布收敛,并揭示不同衰减行为的机制。研究揭示图天然编码相对相似性模式——结构越近的节点语义关联越强。据此,我们提出RELGCL框架,包含成对与列表式两种实现方式,通过集体相似性目标保留此内在模式。大量实验表明,该方法在同质与异质图上均持续优于20种现有方法,验证了利用自然相对相似性优于人工绝对相似性的有效性。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Graph contrastive learning (GCL) has achieved remarkable success by following the computer vision paradigm of preserving absolute similarity between augmented views. However, this approach faces fundamental challenges in graphs due to their discrete, non-Euclidean nature -- view generation often breaks semantic validity and similarity verification becomes unreliable. Through analyzing 11 real-world graphs, we discover a universal pattern transcending the homophily-heterophily dichotomy: label consistency systematically diminishes as structural distance increases, manifesting as smooth decay in homophily graphs and oscillatory decay in heterophily graphs. We establish theoretical guarantees for this pattern through random walk theory, proving label distribution convergence and characterizing the mechanisms behind different decay behaviors. This discovery reveals that graphs naturally encode relative similarity patterns, where structurally closer nodes exhibit collectively stronger semantic relationships. Leveraging this insight, we propose RELGCL, a novel GCL framework with complementary pairwise and listwise implementations that preserve these inherent patterns through collective similarity objectives. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method consistently outperforms 20 existing approaches across both homophily and heterophily graphs, validating the effectiveness of leveraging natural relative similarity over artificial absolute similarity.
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