Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Li, Shihao, Li, Jiachen, Xu, Jiamin, Martin, Christopher, Li, Wei, Chen, Dongmei
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.07878
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
_version_ 1866912701383442432
author Li, Shihao
Li, Jiachen
Xu, Jiamin
Martin, Christopher
Li, Wei
Chen, Dongmei
author_facet Li, Shihao
Li, Jiachen
Xu, Jiamin
Martin, Christopher
Li, Wei
Chen, Dongmei
contents We study how trajectory value depends on the learning algorithm in policy-gradient control. Using Trajectory Shapley in an uncertain LQR, we find a negative correlation between Persistence of Excitation (PE) and marginal value under vanilla REINFORCE ($r\approx-0.38$). We prove a variance-mediated mechanism: (i) for fixed energy, higher PE yields lower gradient variance; (ii) near saddles, higher variance increases escape probability, raising marginal contribution. When stabilized (state whitening or Fisher preconditioning), this variance channel is neutralized and information content dominates, flipping the correlation positive ($r\approx+0.29$). Hence, trajectory value is algorithm-relative. Experiments validate the mechanism and show decision-aligned scores (Leave-One-Out) complement Shapley for pruning, while Shapley identifies toxic subsets.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_07878
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Algorithm-Relative Trajectory Valuation in Policy Gradient Control
Li, Shihao
Li, Jiachen
Xu, Jiamin
Martin, Christopher
Li, Wei
Chen, Dongmei
Machine Learning
Systems and Control
We study how trajectory value depends on the learning algorithm in policy-gradient control. Using Trajectory Shapley in an uncertain LQR, we find a negative correlation between Persistence of Excitation (PE) and marginal value under vanilla REINFORCE ($r\approx-0.38$). We prove a variance-mediated mechanism: (i) for fixed energy, higher PE yields lower gradient variance; (ii) near saddles, higher variance increases escape probability, raising marginal contribution. When stabilized (state whitening or Fisher preconditioning), this variance channel is neutralized and information content dominates, flipping the correlation positive ($r\approx+0.29$). Hence, trajectory value is algorithm-relative. Experiments validate the mechanism and show decision-aligned scores (Leave-One-Out) complement Shapley for pruning, while Shapley identifies toxic subsets.
title Algorithm-Relative Trajectory Valuation in Policy Gradient Control
topic Machine Learning
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.07878