Multi-Scale Harmonic Encoding for Feature-Wise Graph Message Passing

Longlong Li, Mengyang Zhao, Guanghui Wang, Cun-quan Qu

Main figure for Multi-Scale Harmonic Encoding for Feature-Wise Graph Message Passing

Abstract

Most Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) propagate messages by treating node embeddings as holistic feature vectors, implicitly assuming uniform relevance across feature dimensions. This limits their ability to selectively transmit informative components, especially when graph structures exhibit distinct frequency characteristics. We propose MSH-GNN (Multi-Scale Harmonic Graph Neural Network), a frequency-aware message passing framework that performs feature-wise adaptive propagation. Each node projects incoming messages onto node-conditioned feature subspaces derived from its own representation, enabling selective extraction of frequency-relevant components. Learnable multi-scale harmonic modulations further allow the model to capture both smooth and oscillatory structural patterns. A frequency-aware attention pooling mechanism is introduced for graph-level readout. We show that MSH-GNN admits an interpretation as a learnable Fourier-feature approximation of kernelized message functions and matches the expressive power of the 1-Weisfeiler--Lehman (1-WL) test. Extensive experiments on node- and graph-level benchmarks demonstrate consistent improvements over state-of-the-art methods, particularly in joint structure--frequency analysis tasks.

Proposed method: MSH-GNN

Benchmark Results

Tested on 6 datasets 5 baseline values reported too low Non-standard metric on 1 dataset

Tables show presented results in global context (best 3 papers + GCN + MLP).

TU Dortmund

#ModelAccuracy ↑Paper
1
MSH-GNN
0.9910 ±0.0030
This paper
2
ID-GNN+BEC
0.9830 ±0.0360
3
SupCosine
0.9830 ±0.0250
25
RTPool
0.9470 ±0.0330
This paper
26
CIN
actual #26 vs paper #48 22 places worse
0.9440 ±0.0370
best reported
actual #26 vs paper #48 22 places worse
paper 0.9270 ±0.0610

Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance.

paper 0.9270 ±0.0610 Δ at pub 0.0170
39
GIN
actual #39 vs paper #237 198 places worse
0.9330 ±0.0290
best reported
actual #39 vs paper #237 198 places worse
paper 0.8940 ±0.0560

Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance.

paper 0.8940 ±0.0560 Δ at pub 0.0390
40
Wit-TopoPool
0.9320 ±0.0410
This paper
64
GSN
0.9220 ±0.0750
This paper
63
GCN
0.9220 ±0.0440
139
PPGNs
0.9060 ±0.0870
This paper
191
GNTK
0.9000 ±0.0850
This paper
202
GMT
actual #202 vs paper #511 309 places worse
0.8990 ±0.0420
best reported
actual #202 vs paper #511 309 places worse
paper 0.8340 ±0.0130
paper 0.8340 ±0.0130 Δ at pub 0.0650
244
Natural GN
0.8940 ±0.0160
This paper
245
SEP
actual #245 vs paper #432 187 places worse
0.8940 ±0.0610
best reported
actual #245 vs paper #432 187 places worse
paper 0.8560 ±0.0110

Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance.

paper 0.8560 ±0.0110 Δ at pub 0.0380
403
MLP
0.8660 ±0.0495
410
GrePool
0.8630 ±0.0840
This paper
425
DGCNN
actual #425 vs paper #425
0.8583 ±0.0116
best reported
actual #425 vs paper #425
paper 0.8580 ±0.0180

Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance.

paper 0.8580 ±0.0180 Δ at pub 0.0003 Δ today 0.0003
492
IGN
0.8390 ±0.1300
This paper
#ModelAccuracy ↑Paper
1
WL-MLP
0.9954
2
GIN
actual #2 vs paper #91 89 places worse
0.9934
best reported
actual #2 vs paper #91 89 places worse
paper 0.8270 ±0.0170
paper 0.8270 ±0.0170 Δ at pub 0.1664
3
GCN
0.9727
6
MSH-GNN
0.8860 ±0.0050
This paper
19
CIN
actual #19 vs paper #47 28 places worse
0.8530 ±0.0120
best reported
actual #19 vs paper #47 28 places worse
paper 0.8360 ±0.0140

Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance.

paper 0.8360 ±0.0140 Δ at pub 0.0170 Δ today 0.0170
20
PIN
0.8510 ±0.0150
This paper
36
GNTK
0.8420 ±0.0150
This paper
50
GSN
0.8350 ±0.0200
This paper
52
N^2
0.8350 ±0.0380
This paper
64
PPGNs
0.8320 ±0.0110
This paper
82
SIN
actual #82 vs paper #91 9 places worse
0.8280 ±0.0220
best reported
actual #82 vs paper #91 9 places worse
paper 0.8270 ±0.0210

Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance.

paper 0.8270 ±0.0210 Δ at pub 0.0010
109
Natural GN
0.8240 ±0.0130
This paper
127
GrePool
0.8210 ±0.0160
This paper
131
GraphSAGE
0.8200 ±0.0100
254
SEP
actual #254 vs paper #300 46 places worse
0.7935 ±0.0033
best reported
actual #254 vs paper #300 46 places worse
paper 0.7840 ±0.0030
paper 0.7840 ±0.0030 Δ at pub 0.0095
373
DGCNN
actual #373 vs paper #424 51 places worse
0.7650 ±0.0190
best reported
actual #373 vs paper #424 51 places worse
paper 0.7440 ±0.0050

Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance.

paper 0.7440 ±0.0050 Δ at pub 0.0210
428
IGN
actual #428 vs paper #430 2 places worse
0.7433 ±0.0271
best reported
actual #428 vs paper #430 2 places worse
paper 0.7430 ±0.0270

Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance.

paper 0.7430 ±0.0270 Δ at pub 0.0003
540
DCNN
actual #540 vs paper #566 26 places worse
0.6261
best reported
actual #540 vs paper #566 26 places worse
paper 0.5660 ±0.0100
#ModelAccuracy ↑Paper
1
MSH-GNN
0.9410 ±0.0330
This paper
2
GRDL
0.8260 ±0.0120
3
GMN
0.8225
12
CIN
actual #12 vs paper #83 71 places worse
0.8050 ±0.0390
best reported
actual #12 vs paper #83 71 places worse
paper 0.7700 ±0.0430

Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance.

paper 0.7700 ±0.0430 Δ at pub 0.0350 Δ today 0.0350
19
Wit-TopoPool
0.8000 ±0.0320
This paper
32
GIN
actual #32 vs paper #135 103 places worse
0.7880 ±0.0410
best reported
actual #32 vs paper #135 103 places worse
paper 0.7620 ±0.0280

Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance.

paper 0.7620 ±0.0280 Δ at pub 0.0260
33
PIN
0.7880 ±0.0440
This paper
62
N^2
0.7750 ±0.0180
This paper
67
SAGE
0.7726 ±0.0228
74
PPGNs
0.7720 ±0.0470
This paper
100
IGN
0.7660 ±0.0550
This paper
102
GSN
0.7660 ±0.0500
This paper
115
SEP
actual #115 vs paper #116 1 place worse
0.7642 ±0.0039
best reported
actual #115 vs paper #116 1 place worse
paper 0.7640 ±0.0040

Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance.

paper 0.7640 ±0.0040 Δ at pub 0.0002
118
SIN
0.7640 ±0.0330
This paper
132
DGCNN
actual #132 vs paper #190 58 places worse
0.7626
best reported
actual #132 vs paper #190 58 places worse
paper 0.7550 ±0.0090
best at pub: Orthogonal Graph Neural Networks (AAAI 2021)

Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance.

paper 0.7550 ±0.0090 Δ at pub 0.0076
149
MLP
0.7600 ±0.0320
187
GNTK
0.7560 ±0.0420
This paper
236
GMT
0.7510 ±0.0060
This paper
421
Natural GN
0.7170 ±0.0100
This paper
501
DCNN
0.6130 ±0.0160
This paper
#ModelAccuracy ↑Paper
1
WL-MLP
0.9792
2
MSH-GNN
0.9640 ±0.0070
This paper
3
CoCN
0.8722 ±0.0013
4
N^2
0.8670 ±0.0160
This paper
7
GSN
0.8550 ±0.0120
This paper
13
GNTK
0.8360 ±0.0100
This paper
23
GCN
0.8260 ±0.0220
30
GIN
actual #30 vs paper #111 81 places worse
0.8220 ±0.0210
best reported
actual #30 vs paper #111 81 places worse
paper 0.8020 ±0.0190

Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance.

paper 0.8020 ±0.0190 Δ at pub 0.0200
61
PPGNs
0.8140 ±0.0140
This paper
62
GrePool
0.8140 ±0.0150
This paper
69
SEP
0.8130 ±0.0020
This paper
93
GMT
actual #93 vs paper #93
0.8074 ±0.0054
best reported
actual #93 vs paper #93
paper 0.8070 ±0.0050

Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance.

paper 0.8070 ±0.0050 Δ at pub 0.0004 Δ today 0.0004
151
MLP
0.7920 ±0.0240
173
IGN
0.7830 ±0.0250
This paper
191
DGCNN
actual #191 vs paper #268 77 places worse
0.7759 ±0.0224
best reported
actual #191 vs paper #268 77 places worse
paper 0.7380 ±0.0050
paper 0.7380 ±0.0050 Δ at pub 0.0365 Δ today 0.0379
344
DCNN
actual #344 vs paper #344
0.5211 ±0.0070
best reported
actual #344 vs paper #344
paper 0.5210 ±0.0070
best today: Natural Graph Networks (NeurIPS 2020)

Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance.

paper 0.5210 ±0.0070 Δ at pub 0.0001 Δ today 0.0001
#ModelAccuracy ↑Paper
1
OEPG
0.9630 ±0.0090
2
MSH-GNN
0.9580 ±0.0090
This paper
3
GNN-AK+
0.9480 ±0.0080
10
Wit-TopoPool
0.9280 ±0.0110
This paper
13
GIN
0.9240 ±0.0250
This paper
15
CIN
0.9240 ±0.0210
This paper
20
SIN
0.9220 ±0.0100
This paper
84
GCN
0.7060 ±0.0369

Heterophily Benchmark

Minesweeper

Global leaderboard →
Non-default metric. This paper reports Accuracy; the dataset default is ROC-AUC. Values below use Accuracy only.

Sorted by Accuracy. Highlighted rows are from other papers.

#ModelAccuracy ↑Paper
1
GraphTARIF
0.9903 ±0.0019
2
BuNN
0.9899 ±0.0016
3
M3Dphormer
0.9827 ±0.0020
5
GAT
actual #5 vs paper #18 13 places worse
0.9786 ±0.0037
best reported
actual #5 vs paper #18 13 places worse
paper 0.9201 ±0.0068
9
GCN
actual #9 vs paper #24 15 places worse
0.8975 ±0.0052
actual #9 vs paper #24 15 places worse
paper 0.8975 ±0.0052
11
SAGE
0.9709 ±0.0100
13
MSH-GNN
0.9478 ±0.0064
This paper
14
N^2
0.9397 ±0.0027
This paper
17
GraphGPS
0.9229 ±0.0061
This paper
19
GT
0.9185 ±0.0076
This paper
23
Exphormer
actual #23 vs paper #23
0.9074 ±0.0053
best reported
actual #23 vs paper #23
paper 0.9042 ±0.0010

Difference within reported uncertainty; not counted as underperformance.

paper 0.9042 ±0.0010 Δ today 0.0032
31
GPRGNN
0.8624 ±0.0061
This paper
43
MLP
0.8000
SOTA performance (not significantly different from the best) Proposed method (this paper) Baseline / comparison (this paper) Global context (other papers) Best at pub — reported result worse than the best known when published (best reported in green) Improved at pub — later paper surpassed this result Best today — OK at publication; today's leaderboard best is elsewhere