arXiv:2603.14169stat.MEcs.AI2026-03被引 1

用拓扑方法捕捉分布形状变化,突破传统平均效应的局限。

Beyond Means: Topological Causal Effects under Persistent-Homology Ignorability

  • 基于持久同调构建拓扑因果框架,识别分布几何变化
  • 在均值不变时仍能检测出显著的拓扑效应变化
  • 适合关注分布形态改变的研究者,如生物、金融领域

平均处理效应(ATE)和条件平均处理效应(CATE)是基础因果估计算量,但仅关注期望结果的变化,可能忽略处理引起的分布形状改变。当对照组结果为单峰、处理组变为双峰且均值相同时,基于均值的因果估计算量为零,但分布的几何与拓扑结构已发生显著变化。本文提出基于持久同调的拓扑因果框架,形式化持久同调不可忽略性条件,定义了拓扑版的CATE与ATE,并在近似拓扑不可忽略性下证明其可识别性及显式误差界。同时指出:边际持久图效应无法仅从条件拓扑不可忽略性中识别,因持久同调不与协变量混合交换。为保科学严谨性,保留边际效应作为直观动机,核心理论聚焦于条件估计算量。合成实验显示,在均值保持不变但拓扑结构变化的情形下,传统方法效应接近零,而本文提出的拓扑效应迅速上升并可在调整混杂后准确恢复。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Average treatment effects (ATE) and conditional average treatment effects (CATE) are foundational causal estimands, but they target changes in expected outcomes and can miss treatment-induced changes in the shape of outcome distributions. A canonical failure mode occurs when control outcomes are unimodal, treated outcomes become bimodal, and both distributions have the same mean. In such cases mean-based causal estimands are zero even though the geometry and topology of the outcome law change substantially. This paper develops a topological causal framework based on persistent homology. We formalize a persistent-homology ignorability condition, define topological analogues of CATE and ATE, and prove that these estimands are identifiable up to an explicit error bound under approximate topological ignorability. We also clarify a subtle but important point: a marginal persistence-diagram effect is not identified from conditional topological ignorability alone because persistent homology does not in general commute with mixtures over covariates. To preserve the original intuition while ensuring scientific correctness, we retain the marginal effect as a motivating quantity, but place the mathematically sound conditional estimands at the center of the theory. A synthetic experiment with mean-preserving topology change shows that mean-based causal estimands remain near zero while the proposed topological effect increases sharply and remains recoverable after adjustment for confounding.

拓扑学习因果推断持久同调

Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。