解释自监督模型为何能按动态规律聚类时间序列数据
Koopman Invariants as Drivers of Emergent Time-Series Clustering in Joint-Embedding Predictive Architectures
- 通过柯普曼算子不变性理论,揭示预测目标促使模型学习系统内在规律
- 在合成数据上验证:线性预测器近似恒等是关键先验,使编码器学会不变量
- 为可解释的时间序列建模提供新思路,适合研究自监督与动力系统交叉者
联合嵌入预测架构(JEPAs)这类自监督模型展现出一种未被解释的能力:能根据系统的潜在动态模式对时间序列进行聚类。本文提出一种新理论解释,认为JEPA的预测目标隐式驱动其学习系统柯普曼算子的不变子空间。我们证明,在理想化的JEPA损失下,当编码器表示系统状态的分组指示函数(即柯普曼特征函数)时,损失最小化。该理论在具有已知动力学的合成数据上得到验证,表明将线性预测器约束为近似恒等操作是促使编码器学习这些不变量的关键归纳偏置。进一步分析指出,这一约束对于从数学等价但纠缠的多个最优解中选出可解释解至关重要,揭示了预测器在表征解耦中的作用。本工作阐明了JEPA的关键行为机制,建立了现代自监督学习与动力系统理论之间的原则性联系,并为设计更鲁棒、可解释的时间序列模型提供了指导。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Joint-Embedding Predictive Architectures (JEPAs), a powerful class of self-supervised models, exhibit an unexplained ability to cluster time-series data by their underlying dynamical regimes. We propose a novel theoretical explanation for this phenomenon, hypothesizing that JEPA's predictive objective implicitly drives it to learn the invariant subspace of the system's Koopman operator. We prove that an idealized JEPA loss is minimized when the encoder represents the system's regime indicator functions, which are Koopman eigenfunctions. This theory was validated on synthetic data with known dynamics, demonstrating that constraining the JEPA's linear predictor to be a near-identity operator is the key inductive bias that forces the encoder to learn these invariants. We further discuss that this constraint is critical for selecting this interpretable solution from a class of mathematically equivalent but entangled optima, revealing the predictor's role in representation disentanglement. This work demystifies a key behavior of JEPAs, provides a principled connection between modern self-supervised learning and dynamical systems theory, and informs the design of more robust and interpretable time-series models.
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