Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2026
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.00388 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1866912993712799744 |
|---|---|
| author | Li, Shihao Li, Jiachen Chen, Dongmei |
| author_facet | Li, Shihao Li, Jiachen Chen, Dongmei |
| contents | We demonstrate that gradient-based data valuation produces curriculum orderings that significantly outperform metadata-based heuristics for training game-theoretic motion planners. Specifically, we apply TracIn gradient-similarity scoring to GameFormer on the nuPlan benchmark and construct a curriculum that weights training scenarios by their estimated contribution to validation loss reduction. Across three random seeds, the TracIn-weighted curriculum achieves a mean planning ADE of $1.704\pm0.029$\,m, significantly outperforming the metadata-based interaction-difficulty curriculum ($1.822\pm0.014$\,m; paired $t$-test $p=0.021$, Cohen's $d_z=3.88$) while exhibiting lower variance than the uniform baseline ($1.772\pm0.134$\,m). Our analysis reveals that TracIn scores and scenario metadata are nearly orthogonal (Spearman $ρ=-0.014$), indicating that gradient-based valuation captures training dynamics invisible to hand-crafted features. We further show that gradient-based curriculum weighting succeeds where hard data selection fails: TracIn-curated 20\% subsets degrade performance by $2\times$, whereas full-data curriculum weighting with the same scores yields the best results. These findings establish gradient-based data valuation as a practical tool for improving sample efficiency in game-theoretic planning. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_00388 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Gradient-Based Data Valuation Improves Curriculum Learning for Game-Theoretic Motion Planning Li, Shihao Li, Jiachen Chen, Dongmei Machine Learning Systems and Control We demonstrate that gradient-based data valuation produces curriculum orderings that significantly outperform metadata-based heuristics for training game-theoretic motion planners. Specifically, we apply TracIn gradient-similarity scoring to GameFormer on the nuPlan benchmark and construct a curriculum that weights training scenarios by their estimated contribution to validation loss reduction. Across three random seeds, the TracIn-weighted curriculum achieves a mean planning ADE of $1.704\pm0.029$\,m, significantly outperforming the metadata-based interaction-difficulty curriculum ($1.822\pm0.014$\,m; paired $t$-test $p=0.021$, Cohen's $d_z=3.88$) while exhibiting lower variance than the uniform baseline ($1.772\pm0.134$\,m). Our analysis reveals that TracIn scores and scenario metadata are nearly orthogonal (Spearman $ρ=-0.014$), indicating that gradient-based valuation captures training dynamics invisible to hand-crafted features. We further show that gradient-based curriculum weighting succeeds where hard data selection fails: TracIn-curated 20\% subsets degrade performance by $2\times$, whereas full-data curriculum weighting with the same scores yields the best results. These findings establish gradient-based data valuation as a practical tool for improving sample efficiency in game-theoretic planning. |
| title | Gradient-Based Data Valuation Improves Curriculum Learning for Game-Theoretic Motion Planning |
| topic | Machine Learning Systems and Control |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.00388 |