arXiv:2608.21729stat.MLcs.LG2026-08

用密度比估计实现无偏先验引导,让模型在推理时灵活应对先验变化。

Guidance for Prior Change via Density Ratio Estimation

  • 通过密度比估计学习得分引导项,摆脱训练时先验限制。
  • 在多数任务中性能优于或持平PriorGuide,跨先验重叠有限时仍稳定。
  • 适用于科学推断中先验随新数据动态调整的场景,如行星光变曲线分析。

基于模拟的推断(SBI)是科学领域中处理不可计算似然的模拟器的重要框架,尽管可摊销生成模型能快速估计后验,但常受限于训练时使用的特定先验,难以适应先验知识的变化。为解决这一问题,先前的PriorGuide方法依赖高斯近似和高斯混合模型拟合先验比,引入系统偏差。本文提出一种无偏的测试时引导框架,利用密度比估计(DRE)学习得分引导项,有效解耦推断过程与训练先验。该框架对具体密度比估计算法保持中立,具有通用性与灵活性。多个任务实验表明,本方法在大多数情况下达到或超过PriorGuide的性能,尤其在训练与目标先验重叠有限时依然稳健。进一步应用于行星光变曲线数据的贝叶斯更新,验证了其高效性与鲁棒性。代码已开源:https://github.com/a-chenchen/dre-based-prior-guidance。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Simulation-Based Inference (SBI) serves as a vital framework for parameter inference in scientific fields where simulators involve intractable likelihoods, yet while amortized generative models offer rapid posterior estimation, they are often restricted by the specific priors used during training, thereby limiting their flexibility as prior knowledge evolves. To address this prior dependency, PriorGuide was introduced as an inference-time guidance method, but due to its intractable formulation, it relies on Gaussian approximations of the reverse transition kernel and Gaussian mixture model fitting for the prior ratio, both of which introduce systematic bias. Motivated by these limitations, we propose an unbiased test-time guidance framework that leverages Density Ratio Estimation (DRE) to learn a score guidance term, effectively decoupling the inference process from the prior training. Moreover, our framework remains agnostic to the specific density ratio estimators, making it a general and flexible framework for handling prior changes. Experimental results across multiple tasks demonstrate that our method matches or outperforms PriorGuide on C2ST and MMD in most tasks while maintaining robustness even under limited overlap between the training and target priors. Furthermore, we apply our method to Bayesian updating for parameter inference from planetary light-curve data, where it also demonstrates strong effectiveness and robustness. Code is available at https://github.com/a-chenchen/dre-based-prior-guidance .

贝叶斯推断密度比估计先验更新科学建模

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