A generalized motif-based Na\"ive Bayes model for sign prediction in complex networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a generalized motif-based Na"ive Bayes framework for sign prediction in complex signed networks, explicitly modeling neighbor heterogeneity and integrating multiple motifs for improved accuracy.

Contribution

It proposes a novel, flexible sign prediction model that accounts for neighbor influence heterogeneity and combines multiple motifs using machine learning, outperforming existing methods.

Findings

FGMNB outperforms five state-of-the-art baselines on three real-world networks.

Different datasets have distinct most predictive motif structures.

The framework offers a theoretically grounded approach with practical applications.

Abstract

Signed networks, encoding both positive and negative interactions, are essential for modeling complex systems in social and financial domains. Sign prediction, which infers the sign of a target link, has wide-ranging practical applications. Traditional motif-based Na\"ive Bayes models assume that all neighboring nodes contribute equally to a target link's sign, overlooking the heterogeneous influence among neighbors and potentially limiting performance. To address this, we propose a generalizable sign prediction framework that explicitly models the heterogeneity. Specifically, we design two role functions to quantify the differentiated influence of neighboring nodes. We further extend this approach from a single motif to multiple motifs via two strategies. The generalized multiple motifs-based Na\"ive Bayes model linearly combines information from diverse motifs, while the Feature-driven Generalized Motif-based Na\"ive Bayes (FGMNB) model integrates high-dimensional motif features using machine learning. Extensive experiments on four real-world signed networks show that FGMNB consistently outperforms five state-of-the-art embedding-based baselines on three of these networks. Moreover, we observe that the most predictive motif structures differ across datasets, highlighting the importance of local structural patterns and offering valuable insights for motif-based feature engineering. Our framework provides an effective and theoretically grounded solution to sign prediction, with practical implications for enhancing trust and security in online platforms.