Raj, Kislay
ORCID: 0000-0003-0089-6866 and Mileo, Alessandra
ORCID: 0000-0002-6614-6462
(2026)
Towards semantic understanding of graph neural network layers embedding with functional semantic activation mapping.
Neurosymbolic Artificial Intelligence, 2
.
p. 29498732251408218.
ISSN 2949-8732
Abstract
Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) are now a standard tool for modelling graph structured data in applications such as molecular property prediction, drug discovery, recommender systems, and citation networks. However, despite their strong predictive performance, they still suffer from the black box problem. Most existing explainability methods focus on local-level explainability, explaining individual predictions. They highlight important nodes and edges but don′t capture how the model behaves globally across a dataset. As a result, global-level explainability remains an open challenge. In this paper, we extend our previous work on Functional Semantic Activation Mapping (FSAM) to investigate how varying the number of GNN layers affects both representation quality and predictive performance. Across several datasets, increasing depth may improve accuracy but does not necessarily enhance semantic coherence. In some cases, performance gains coincide with a decline in semantic quality, suggesting that spurious patterns may drive correct predictions for wrong reasons. FSAM layer-wise activation tracking allowed us to track neuron activations across layers, revealing that deeper layers can reduce neuron specialisation and lead to class misclassifications. Our findings demonstrate a critical trade-off that increased depth can compromise interpretability without commensurate gains in meaningful semantic learning.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article (Published) |
|---|---|
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Explainable artificial intelligence, graph neural network, graph analysis, neuro-symbolic artificial intelligence |
| Subjects: | Computer Science > Artificial intelligence Computer Science > Computational complexity Computer Science > Machine learning |
| DCU Faculties and Centres: | DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Engineering and Computing DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Engineering and Computing > School of Computing |
| Publisher: | Sage Publications, Inc. |
| Official URL: | https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/294987322... |
| Copyright Information: | Authors |
| Funders: | This work was conducted with the financial support of the Science Foundation, Ireland Centre for Research Training in Artificial Intelligence under Grant No. 18/CRT/622.3 |
| ID Code: | 33225 |
| Deposited On: | 28 Aug 2026 08:49 by Kislay Raj . Last Modified 28 Aug 2026 08:49 |
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