Skip to content

Conditional Kernel Stein Discrepancy

Oct 2026 · 0 citations · 73 references
Mathematics Computer Science

Abstract

Kernel Stein discrepancies (KSDs) provide a versatile tool for comparing distributions. One of their main applications is in quantifying the goodness-of-fit (GoF) between a data-generating distribution and a prescribed target distribution. In this work, we study the related problem of conditional GoF quantification: given only a (possibly non-normalized) conditional target model, without information on the distribution of its covariates, and samples from a joint distribution, the goal is to assess how well the conditional distribution of the samples matches the target. To tackle this setting, we present a framework that allows lifting unconditional KSDs to the conditional setting through an operator-valued kernel on the covariate space, going beyond the known Euclidean case. We establish that our suggested statistic vanishes if and only if the conditional model and the true conditional distribution agree for almost all covariates and deploy it to test conditional GoF on smooth manifolds and on discrete spaces. Our experiments on level, power, and runtime demonstrate the viability of testing on these domains using the proposed statistic.

View source

Similar papers

Review Sep 2026

A Conditional-Distribution Framework for Validating Synthetic Multivariate Data

A model-agnostic framework based on full conditional distributions distinguishes three statistically different failure modes: loss of dependence, record reuse, and mode concentration, and provides a principled basis for validating synthetic health, surveillance, and population data.

H. Dahal, Ishanu Chattopadhyay · 0 citations
Preprint Aug 2026

Kernelized Stein Discrepancy for Goodness-of-Fit Tests and Stein Sampling in R

Stein's method constructs computable discrepancies between a target distribution and a candidate distribution without requiring the target distribution's normalizing constant. These discrepancies support goodness-of-fit tests for model assessment as well as sampling tools for empirical approximation. The R package stei...

Junhui Gao, E. Arias-Castro · 0 citations
Preprint Aug 2026

Distribution-free testing of linear type

We introduce a distribution-free goodness-of-fit test, termed the omega-1 test, which naturally complements the Kolmogorov--Smirnov test and Cram\'{e}r--von Mises test and can be viewed as their (piecewise) linear analog. Defined as an $\mathrm{L}^{1}$-functional of the empirical process, the test statistic improves on...

Wei-Xu Xia · 0 citations
Preprint Oct 2026

Extending the Oracle Approximating Shrinkage to General Distributions

The Oracle Approximating Shrinkage (OAS) estimator provides a closed-form, data-driven shrinkage intensity for regularizing sample covariance matrices toward a scaled identity target, but its derivation assumes Gaussian data. In practice, financial returns, neural signals, and many other high-dimensional datasets exhib...

Michael J. Lewis · 0 citations
#machine learning Preprint Oct 2026

Unbounded Characteristic and Universal Kernels

Kernel methods are among the most powerful tools in machine learning and statistics, with a large number of successful applications. Their immense success stems from the flexible function class associated to each kernel---its reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS)---which facilitates statistical analysis, as well as f...

Jose Cribeiro-Ramallo, Florian Kalinke, Zoltán Szabó · 0 citations
Preprint Oct 2026

A Bayesian One-Sample Test for the Mean of Functional Data

In the context of functional data analysis, we propose a Bayesian test to assess whether the mean function of a Gaussian population is identically zero. By leveraging the structure of the reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS) associated with the covariance function of the underlying process, we approximate the mean b...

J. R. Berrendero, A. Coín, Antonio Cuevas · 0 citations

Related blog posts

We use cookies to run the site and, with your consent, for analytics and to show ads. See our Cookie Policy.