Preserving Global Information for Graph Clustering with Masked Autoencoders

Abstract

Graph clustering aims to divide nodes into different clusters without labels and has attracted great attention due to the success of graph neural networks (GNNs). Traditional GNN-based clustering methods are based on the homophilic assumption, i.e., connected nodes belong to the same clusters. However, this assumption is not always true, as heterophilic graphs are also ubiquitous in the real world, which limits the application of GNNs. Furthermore, these methods overlook global positions, which can result in erroneous clustering. To solve the aforementioned problems, we propose a novel model called Preserving Global Information for Graph Clustering with Masked Autoencoders (GCMA). We first propose a low–high-pass filter to capture meaningful low- and high-frequency information. Then, we propose a graph diffusion method to obtain the global position. Specifically, a parameterized Laplacian matrix is proposed to better control the global direction. To further enhance the learning ability of the autoencoders, we design a model with a masking strategy that enhances the learning ability. Extensive experiments on both homophilic and heterophilic graphs demonstrate GCMA’s advantages over state-of-the-art baselines.