LinRec: Linear Attention Mechanism for Long-term Sequential Recommender Systems

Fuente: arXiv
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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Liu, Langming, Zhao, Xiangyu, Zhang, Chi, Gao, Jingtong, Wang, Wanyu, Fan, Wenqi, Wang, Yiqi, He, Ming, Liu, Zitao, Li, Qing
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Liu, Langming
Zhao, Xiangyu
Zhang, Chi
Gao, Jingtong
Wang, Wanyu
Fan, Wenqi
Wang, Yiqi
He, Ming
Liu, Zitao
Li, Qing
author_facet Liu, Langming
Zhao, Xiangyu
Zhang, Chi
Gao, Jingtong
Wang, Wanyu
Fan, Wenqi
Wang, Yiqi
He, Ming
Liu, Zitao
Li, Qing
contents Transformer models have achieved remarkable success in sequential recommender systems (SRSs). However, computing the attention matrix in traditional dot-product attention mechanisms results in a quadratic complexity with sequence lengths, leading to high computational costs for long-term sequential recommendation. Motivated by the above observation, we propose a novel L2-Normalized Linear Attention for the Transformer-based Sequential Recommender Systems (LinRec), which theoretically improves efficiency while preserving the learning capabilities of the traditional dot-product attention. Specifically, by thoroughly examining the equivalence conditions of efficient attention mechanisms, we show that LinRec possesses linear complexity while preserving the property of attention mechanisms. In addition, we reveal its latent efficiency properties by interpreting the proposed LinRec mechanism through a statistical lens. Extensive experiments are conducted based on two public benchmark datasets, demonstrating that the combination of LinRec and Transformer models achieves comparable or even superior performance than state-of-the-art Transformer-based SRS models while significantly improving time and memory efficiency.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_01537
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle LinRec: Linear Attention Mechanism for Long-term Sequential Recommender Systems
Liu, Langming
Zhao, Xiangyu
Zhang, Chi
Gao, Jingtong
Wang, Wanyu
Fan, Wenqi
Wang, Yiqi
He, Ming
Liu, Zitao
Li, Qing
Information Retrieval
Transformer models have achieved remarkable success in sequential recommender systems (SRSs). However, computing the attention matrix in traditional dot-product attention mechanisms results in a quadratic complexity with sequence lengths, leading to high computational costs for long-term sequential recommendation. Motivated by the above observation, we propose a novel L2-Normalized Linear Attention for the Transformer-based Sequential Recommender Systems (LinRec), which theoretically improves efficiency while preserving the learning capabilities of the traditional dot-product attention. Specifically, by thoroughly examining the equivalence conditions of efficient attention mechanisms, we show that LinRec possesses linear complexity while preserving the property of attention mechanisms. In addition, we reveal its latent efficiency properties by interpreting the proposed LinRec mechanism through a statistical lens. Extensive experiments are conducted based on two public benchmark datasets, demonstrating that the combination of LinRec and Transformer models achieves comparable or even superior performance than state-of-the-art Transformer-based SRS models while significantly improving time and memory efficiency.
title LinRec: Linear Attention Mechanism for Long-term Sequential Recommender Systems
topic Information Retrieval
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.01537