Understanding DNNs in Feature Interaction Models: A Dimensional Collapse Perspective

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Wang, Jiancheng, Yin, Mingjia, Wang, Hao, Chen, Enhong
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Wang, Jiancheng
Yin, Mingjia
Wang, Hao
Chen, Enhong
author_facet Wang, Jiancheng
Yin, Mingjia
Wang, Hao
Chen, Enhong
contents DNNs have gained widespread adoption in feature interaction recommendation models. However, there has been a longstanding debate on their roles. On one hand, some works claim that DNNs possess the ability to implicitly capture high-order feature interactions. Conversely, recent studies have highlighted the limitations of DNNs in effectively learning dot products, specifically second-order interactions, let alone higher-order interactions. In this paper, we present a novel perspective to understand the effectiveness of DNNs: their impact on the dimensional robustness of the representations. In particular, we conduct extensive experiments involving both parallel DNNs and stacked DNNs. Our evaluation encompasses an overall study of complete DNN on two feature interaction models, alongside a fine-grained ablation analysis of components within DNNs. Experimental results demonstrate that both parallel and stacked DNNs can effectively mitigate the dimensional collapse of embeddings. Furthermore, a gradient-based theoretical analysis, supported by empirical evidence, uncovers the underlying mechanisms of dimensional collapse.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_26489
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Understanding DNNs in Feature Interaction Models: A Dimensional Collapse Perspective
Wang, Jiancheng
Yin, Mingjia
Wang, Hao
Chen, Enhong
Machine Learning
Information Retrieval
DNNs have gained widespread adoption in feature interaction recommendation models. However, there has been a longstanding debate on their roles. On one hand, some works claim that DNNs possess the ability to implicitly capture high-order feature interactions. Conversely, recent studies have highlighted the limitations of DNNs in effectively learning dot products, specifically second-order interactions, let alone higher-order interactions. In this paper, we present a novel perspective to understand the effectiveness of DNNs: their impact on the dimensional robustness of the representations. In particular, we conduct extensive experiments involving both parallel DNNs and stacked DNNs. Our evaluation encompasses an overall study of complete DNN on two feature interaction models, alongside a fine-grained ablation analysis of components within DNNs. Experimental results demonstrate that both parallel and stacked DNNs can effectively mitigate the dimensional collapse of embeddings. Furthermore, a gradient-based theoretical analysis, supported by empirical evidence, uncovers the underlying mechanisms of dimensional collapse.
title Understanding DNNs in Feature Interaction Models: A Dimensional Collapse Perspective
topic Machine Learning
Information Retrieval
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.26489