arXiv:2507.01781cs.LGcs.AI2025-07

用决策树结构构建可解释的神经网络,兼顾准确率与透明性。

Symbolic Branch Networks: Tree-Inherited Neural Models for Interpretable Multiclass Classification

  • 将决策树路径映射为神经元,保留分支语义和特征重要性
  • 在28个数据集上表现媲美甚至超过XGBoost
  • 适合需要可解释性的工业级分类任务

符号分支网络(SBN)是一种架构源自决策树集成的神经模型。每条从根到叶节点前驱的路径对应一个隐藏神经元,矩阵 $W_{1}$(特征到分支)和 $W_{2}$(分支到类别)编码了集成的符号结构。由于这些矩阵源于决策树,SBN 保持了清晰的特征相关性和分支级语义,并支持梯度学习。本文的核心贡献是 SBN,一种半符号变体,通过固定 $W_{2}$ 保留分支语义,仅允许 $W_{1}$ 通过学习优化,实现精度提升而不改变符号结构。在 OpenML CC-18 基准的 28 个多元表格式数据集上,SBN 持续达到或超越 XGBoost 性能,同时保持人类可读的分支归因。我们还分析了 SBN*,一种完全符号化变体,其中 $W_{1}$ 与 $W_{2}$ 均冻结,仅训练校准层。尽管无符号参数可训练,SBN* 在多数基准上仍表现良好,凸显了树结构带来的符号路由作为归纳偏置的强大作用。结果表明,符号结构与神经优化结合,可在保持稳定可解释表示的同时实现强性能。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Symbolic Branch Networks (SBNs) are neural models whose architecture is inherited directly from an ensemble of decision trees. Each root-to-parent-of-leaf decision path is mapped to a hidden neuron, and the matrices $W_{1}$ (feature-to-branch) and $W_{2}$ (branch-to-class) encode the symbolic structure of the ensemble. Because these matrices originate from the trees, SBNs preserve transparent feature relevance and branch-level semantics while enabling gradient-based learning. The primary contribution of this work is SBN, a semi-symbolic variant that preserves branch semantics by keeping $W_{2}$ fixed, while allowing $W_{1}$ to be refined through learning. This controlled relaxation improves predictive accuracy without altering the underlying symbolic structure. Across 28 multiclass tabular datasets from the OpenML CC-18 benchmark, SBN consistently matches or surpasses XGBoost while retaining human-interpretable branch attributions. We also analyze SBN*, a fully symbolic variant in which both $W_{1}$ and $W_{2}$ are frozen and only calibration layers are trained. Despite having no trainable symbolic parameters, SBN* achieves competitive performance on many benchmarks, highlighting the strength of tree-derived symbolic routing as an inductive bias. Overall, these results show that symbolic structure and neural optimization can be combined to achieve strong performance while maintaining stable and interpretable internal representations.

可解释性神经网络决策树分类

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