Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Carrasco, Martin, Zaghen, Olga, Sumaraj, Kavir, Bekkers, Erik, Rieck, Bastian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.03068
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866908860967550976
author Carrasco, Martin
Zaghen, Olga
Sumaraj, Kavir
Bekkers, Erik
Rieck, Bastian
author_facet Carrasco, Martin
Zaghen, Olga
Sumaraj, Kavir
Bekkers, Erik
Rieck, Bastian
contents A large driver of the complexity of graph learning is the interplay between structure and features. When analyzing the expressivity of graph neural networks, however, existing approaches ignore features in favor of structure, making it nigh-impossible to assess to what extent two graphs with close features should be considered similar. We address this by developing a new (pseudo-)metric based on graph homomorphisms. Inspired by concepts from metric geometry, our graph homomorphism distortion measures the minimal worst-case distortion that node features of one graph are subjected to when mapping one graph to another. We demonstrate the utility of our novel measure by showing that (i.) it can be efficiently calculated under some additional assumptions, (ii.) it complements existing expressivity measures like $1$-WL, and (iii.) it permits defining structural encodings, which improve the predictive capabilities of graph neural networks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_03068
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Graph Homomorphism Distortion: A Metric to Distinguish Them All and in the Latent Space Bind Them
Carrasco, Martin
Zaghen, Olga
Sumaraj, Kavir
Bekkers, Erik
Rieck, Bastian
Machine Learning
A large driver of the complexity of graph learning is the interplay between structure and features. When analyzing the expressivity of graph neural networks, however, existing approaches ignore features in favor of structure, making it nigh-impossible to assess to what extent two graphs with close features should be considered similar. We address this by developing a new (pseudo-)metric based on graph homomorphisms. Inspired by concepts from metric geometry, our graph homomorphism distortion measures the minimal worst-case distortion that node features of one graph are subjected to when mapping one graph to another. We demonstrate the utility of our novel measure by showing that (i.) it can be efficiently calculated under some additional assumptions, (ii.) it complements existing expressivity measures like $1$-WL, and (iii.) it permits defining structural encodings, which improve the predictive capabilities of graph neural networks.
title Graph Homomorphism Distortion: A Metric to Distinguish Them All and in the Latent Space Bind Them
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.03068