将链式思考视为聚类,用k-means解释大模型在图数据上的推理过程。
Clustering as Reasoning: A $k$-Means Interpretation of Chain-of-Thought Graph Learning

- 把思维链看作迭代聚类,通过k-means数学对应统一推理与表示学习。
- 在多个标准数据集上优于现有方法,提升图结构推理性能。
- 适合关注大模型可解释性与图学习融合的研究者。
链式思考(CoT)提示在文本属性图(TAGs)上展现了提升大语言模型(LLMs)推理能力的潜力。本文从‘聚类即推理’的角度重新审视基于CoT的图学习,提出一种k-means解释框架,揭示了迭代推理在图结构数据上的运作机制。我们发现,现有图CoT方法依赖分离架构和固定图表示,限制了语义与拓扑的逐步交互及可解释性。为此,我们提出统一框架KCoT,将CoT推理与图表示学习融合。关键理论结果表明,Transformer模块与k-means算法存在形式上的数学对应关系,使推理可被解读为迭代的分配与更新步骤。基于此,我们设计了语义区分提示,显式构建结构化思维链,并引入结构感知对齐策略,将拓扑先验与动态思维条件表示融合。在标准基准上的实验显示,该方法持续超越当前最优方法,验证了聚类作为CoT图学习原理性机制的有效性。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Chain-of-Thought (CoT) prompting has shown promise in enhancing the reasoning capabilities of large language models (LLMs) on text-attributed graphs (TAGs). This work reframes CoT-based graph learning through the principle of clustering as reasoning, offering a $k$-means interpretation of how iterative reasoning operates over graph-structured data. We observe that existing graph CoT methods rely on disjoint architectures and fixed graph representations, limiting step-by-step semantic-topological interaction and interpretability. To overcome this limitation, we propose a unified framework named KCoT that integrates CoT reasoning with graph representation learning. Our key theoretical result reveals a formal mathematical correspondence between a Transformer block and the $k$-means algorithm, allowing reasoning to be interpreted as iterative assignment and update steps. Based on this insight, we introduce a Semantic Discriminating Prompt that explicitly formulates these steps as structured CoT reasoning, together with a structure-grounded alignment strategy to fuse topological priors with evolving thought-conditioned representations. Experiments on standard benchmarks demonstrate consistent improvements over state-of-the-art methods, validating clustering as a principled mechanism for CoT-based graph learning.
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