Separation-based distance measures for causal graphs

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Hauptverfasser: Wahl, Jonas, Runge, Jakob
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Wahl, Jonas
Runge, Jakob
author_facet Wahl, Jonas
Runge, Jakob
contents Assessing the accuracy of the output of causal discovery algorithms is crucial in developing and comparing novel methods. Common evaluation metrics such as the structural Hamming distance are useful for assessing individual links of causal graphs. However, many state-of-the-art causal discovery methods do not output single causal graphs, but rather their Markov equivalence classes (MECs) which encode all of the graph's separation and connection statements. In this work, we propose additional measures of distance that capture the difference in separations of two causal graphs which link-based distances are not fit to assess. The proposed distances have low polynomial time complexity and are applicable to directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) as well as to maximal ancestral graph (MAGs) that may contain bidirected edges. We complement our theoretical analysis with toy examples and empirical experiments that highlight the differences to existing comparison metrics.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_04952
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Separation-based distance measures for causal graphs
Wahl, Jonas
Runge, Jakob
Methodology
Machine Learning
Assessing the accuracy of the output of causal discovery algorithms is crucial in developing and comparing novel methods. Common evaluation metrics such as the structural Hamming distance are useful for assessing individual links of causal graphs. However, many state-of-the-art causal discovery methods do not output single causal graphs, but rather their Markov equivalence classes (MECs) which encode all of the graph's separation and connection statements. In this work, we propose additional measures of distance that capture the difference in separations of two causal graphs which link-based distances are not fit to assess. The proposed distances have low polynomial time complexity and are applicable to directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) as well as to maximal ancestral graph (MAGs) that may contain bidirected edges. We complement our theoretical analysis with toy examples and empirical experiments that highlight the differences to existing comparison metrics.
title Separation-based distance measures for causal graphs
topic Methodology
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.04952