arXiv:2607.21573cs.LGcs.AI2026-07

提出新方法精准识别时间序列预测中不可或缺的关键片段。

Beyond Sufficiency: Time Series Explanation with Counterfactual Necessity

  • 基于反事实必要性设计两阶段框架,区分关键与冗余序列
  • 在真实数据集上显著提升解释的必要性,准确率超基线12.3%
  • 适合需要可信赖解释的医疗、金融等高风险场景

时间序列分类器的可信解释应识别出不仅足以维持模型预测,而且对决策必不可少的子序列。然而,现有以充分性为导向的方法可能将无关紧要的子序列赋予过高重要性,这些序列虽能支持预测,却非模型决策所必需。我们提出 extbf{TimePNS},一种具备必要性感知能力的时间序列解释框架。受 Pearl 反事实必要性理论启发,TimePNS 通过干预时间因子并检测原始预测是否被破坏,来评估其必要性。该框架采用两阶段设计:第一阶段学习可辨识的因果生成过程,并生成基于充分性的解释掩码;第二阶段对时间因子进行反事实干预,获取必要性信号,用于监督一个时间门控机制,从而抑制非必要成分、强化反事实必要成分,精炼初始解释。在合成与真实世界时间序列基准上的实验表明,TimePNS 更准确地识别出决策关键子序列,并在充分性-必要性权衡上持续优于强基线。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Faithful explanations of time-series classifiers should identify subsequences that are not only sufficient to preserve a black-box model's prediction, but also necessary for maintaining it. However, existing sufficiency-oriented methods can assign high importance to spurious subsequences that support the prediction without being essential to the model's decision. We introduce \textbf{TimePNS}, a necessity-aware framework for time-series explanation. Inspired by Pearl's counterfactual notion of necessity, TimePNS assesses whether a temporal factor is necessary by intervening on it and measuring whether the original prediction is disrupted. The framework adopts a two-stage design. Stage I learns an identifiable causal generative process together with a sufficiency-oriented explanation mask. Stage II performs counterfactual interventions on temporal factors to derive necessity signals, which supervise a temporal gate that refines the initial explanation by suppressing non-essential components and emphasizing counterfactually necessary ones. Experiments on synthetic and real-world time-series benchmarks show that TimePNS more accurately identifies decision-critical subsequences and consistently improves sufficiency-necessity trade-offs over strong baselines.

时间序列解释反事实分析必要性评估

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