发现异质图中诱导子图是误导模型的虚假捷径,提出因果解耦方法提升分类准确率。
Inductive Subgraphs as Shortcuts: Causal Disentanglement for Heterophilic Graph Learning

- 从因果视角识别并阻断异质图中的虚假捷径路径
- 在多个真实数据集上显著优于现有异质图学习方法
- 适合研究图神经网络偏差与鲁棒性优化的研究者
异质性是现实图结构的普遍特性,严重损害同质性图神经网络(GNN)的性能。以往工作通过扩展非局部邻居或改进架构来适应异质图,但对误分类的根本原因仍缺乏理解。本文首次从归纳子图角度出发,实证与理论证明这些子图会形成虚假捷径,误导GNN并强化非因果关联。为此,我们引入因果推断视角,构建去偏置因果图,显式阻断导致捷径的混淆与溢出路径。基于此,提出因果解耦GNN(CD-GNN),通过显式阻断非因果路径,将虚假诱导子图与真实因果子图解耦。聚焦于真正因果信号,CD-GNN大幅提升了异质图上节点分类的鲁棒性与准确性。在多个真实世界数据集上的实验不仅验证了理论发现,还表明CD-GNN超越当前最先进的异质图感知基线。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Heterophily is a prevalent property of real-world graphs and is well known to impair the performance of homophilic Graph Neural Networks (GNNs). Prior work has attempted to adapt GNNs to heterophilic graphs through non-local neighbor extension or architecture refinement. However, the fundamental reasons behind misclassifications remain poorly understood. In this work, we take a novel perspective by examining recurring inductive subgraphs, empirically and theoretically showing that they act as spurious shortcuts that mislead GNNs and reinforce non-causal correlations in heterophilic graphs. To address this, we adopt a causal inference perspective to analyze and correct the biased learning behavior induced by shortcut inductive subgraphs. We propose a debiased causal graph that explicitly blocks confounding and spillover paths responsible for these shortcuts. Guided by this causal graph, we introduce Causal Disentangled GNN (CD-GNN), a principled framework that disentangles spurious inductive subgraphs from true causal subgraphs by explicitly blocking non-causal paths. By focusing on genuine causal signals, CD-GNN substantially improves the robustness and accuracy of node classification in heterophilic graphs. Extensive experiments on real-world datasets not only validate our theoretical findings but also demonstrate that our proposed CD-GNN outperforms state-of-the-art heterophily-aware baselines.
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