CQD-SHAP: Explainable Complex Query Answering via Shapley Values

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Abbasi, Parsa, Heindorf, Stefan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Abbasi, Parsa
Heindorf, Stefan
author_facet Abbasi, Parsa
Heindorf, Stefan
contents Complex query answering (CQA) goes beyond the well-studied link prediction task by addressing more sophisticated queries that require multi-hop reasoning over incomplete knowledge graphs (KGs). Research on neural and neurosymbolic CQA methods is still an emerging field. Almost all of these methods can be regarded as black-box models, which may raise concerns about user trust. Although neurosymbolic approaches like CQD are slightly more interpretable, allowing intermediate results to be tracked, the importance of different parts of the query remains unexplained. In this paper, we propose CQD-SHAP, a novel framework that computes the contribution of each query part to the ranking of a specific answer. This contribution explains the value of leveraging a neural predictor that can infer new knowledge from an incomplete KG, rather than a symbolic approach relying solely on existing facts in the KG. CQD-SHAP is formulated based on Shapley values from cooperative game theory and satisfies all the fundamental Shapley axioms. Automated evaluation of these explanations in terms of necessary and sufficient explanations, and comparisons with various baselines, shows the effectiveness of this approach for most query types.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_15623
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle CQD-SHAP: Explainable Complex Query Answering via Shapley Values
Abbasi, Parsa
Heindorf, Stefan
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Complex query answering (CQA) goes beyond the well-studied link prediction task by addressing more sophisticated queries that require multi-hop reasoning over incomplete knowledge graphs (KGs). Research on neural and neurosymbolic CQA methods is still an emerging field. Almost all of these methods can be regarded as black-box models, which may raise concerns about user trust. Although neurosymbolic approaches like CQD are slightly more interpretable, allowing intermediate results to be tracked, the importance of different parts of the query remains unexplained. In this paper, we propose CQD-SHAP, a novel framework that computes the contribution of each query part to the ranking of a specific answer. This contribution explains the value of leveraging a neural predictor that can infer new knowledge from an incomplete KG, rather than a symbolic approach relying solely on existing facts in the KG. CQD-SHAP is formulated based on Shapley values from cooperative game theory and satisfies all the fundamental Shapley axioms. Automated evaluation of these explanations in terms of necessary and sufficient explanations, and comparisons with various baselines, shows the effectiveness of this approach for most query types.
title CQD-SHAP: Explainable Complex Query Answering via Shapley Values
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.15623