arXiv:2602.20396cs.LGstat.ME2026-02被引 1

纠正特征重要性分析中的伪关联,需引入因果背景。

cc-Shapley: Measuring Multivariate Feature Importance Needs Causal Context

  • 基于因果结构改进传统特征重要性计算方法。
  • 在合成与真实数据上,特征重要性出现反转或消失。
  • 适合关注模型可解释性与因果推断的研究者。

可解释人工智能旨在揭示相关特征,帮助人类审查机器学习模型甚至推动科学发现。尽管Shapley值广泛应用,我们发现纯数据驱动的多变量特征重要性度量不适用于此类目的。即使在仅有两个特征的简单问题中,仅考虑一个特征时,因碰撞器偏差和抑制效应导致的虚假关联也会产生误导。必须借助数据生成过程的因果知识,才能识别并修正这些误导性归因。本文提出cc-Shapley(因果上下文Shapley),一种利用数据因果结构对传统观测Shapley值进行干预修改的方法,用于分析某特征在其余特征因果背景下的重要性。理论上证明该方法可消除由碰撞器偏差引发的虚假关联。我们在多种合成与真实数据集上对比了Shapley与cc-Shapley值的行为,发现从观测到cc-Shapley时,特征重要性出现归零或反转现象。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Explainable artificial intelligence promises to yield insights into relevant features, thereby enabling humans to examine and scrutinize machine learning models or even facilitating scientific discovery. Considering the widespread technique of Shapley values, we find that purely data-driven operationalization of multivariate feature importance is unsuitable for such purposes. Even for simple problems with two features, spurious associations due to collider bias and suppression arise from considering one feature only in the observational context of the other, which can lead to misinterpretations. Causal knowledge about the data-generating process is required to identify and correct such misleading feature attributions. We propose cc-Shapley (causal context Shapley), an interventional modification of conventional observational Shapley values leveraging knowledge of the data's causal structure, thereby analyzing the relevance of a feature in the causal context of the remaining features. We show theoretically that this eradicates spurious association induced by collider bias. We compare the behavior of Shapley and cc-Shapley values on various, synthetic, and real-world datasets. We observe nullification or reversal of associations compared to univariate feature importance when moving from observational to cc-Shapley.

可解释AI因果推理特征重要性

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