提出分治框架,让贝叶斯推断在决策模型中更快更通用。
Divide-and-Conquer: Towards Generalizable Amortized Bayesian Inference for the Drift Diffusion Model

- 将数据拆成成对片段,用单一神经网络学习共性结构
- 精度和不确定性接近传统方法,计算成本降低数个数量级
- 适合需要快速跨实验设计推断的研究者
漂移扩散模型(DDM)是认知决策研究的核心。尽管已有多种估计方法,研究者仍追求既快速又适用于多样实验设计的推断方案。自洽贝叶斯推断(ABI)能对复杂随机模型如DDM实现近乎即时推断,但为特定实验训练的神经网络难以泛化到其他设计。本文提出分治框架以解决此问题:利用DDM的独立性假设,将完整数据集分解为共享共同结构的成对数据片,由单个神经网络学习;各片分别推断后,通过共识MCMC合并后验以逼近全后验。基于模拟数据评估表明,该方法在精度和不确定性上与MCMC相当,同时计算成本降低数个数量级。本工作不仅推进了DDM估计,也展示了提升ABI可扩展性和泛化性的通用策略。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
The drift diffusion model (DDM) is a cornerstone of cognitive decision-making research. Although numerous estimation methods exist, researchers continue to seek inference approaches that are both fast and flexible across diverse study designs. Amortized Bayesian inference (ABI) can provide nearly instantaneous inference for complex stochastic models like the DDM, but neural networks trained for one study design cannot generalize to others. In this paper, we propose a divide-and-conquer framework that address this limitation. The core idea is that the DDM's independence assumption allows the full dataset to be decomposed into pairwise shards, each sharing a common structure that a single neural network can learn. Inference is performed on each shard separately and the resulting posteriors are combined via consensus MCMC to approximate the full posterior. Using simulated datasets, we evaluate the accuracy and uncertainty of this method. Our results show that the proposed divide-and-conquer approach achieves accuracy and uncertainty comparable to MCMC while reducing computational cost by several orders of magnitude. This work not only advances DDM estimation but also demonstrates a general strategy for improving the scalability and generalizability of ABI methods across diverse applications.
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