# Graph Contrastive Learning with Cohesive Subgraph Awareness

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.17580 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.17580/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 31 of its 64 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 31 Jan 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 31)

- [Semi-Supervised Classification with Graph Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.02907/) (2016)
- [Graph Attention Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.10903/) (2017)
- [How Powerful are Graph Neural Networks?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.00826/) (2018)
- [Neural Message Passing for Quantum Chemistry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.01212/) (2017)
- [Variational Graph Auto-Encoders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.07308/) (2016)
- [Graph Contrastive Learning with Augmentations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.13902/) (2020)
- [Deep Graph Infomax](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.10341/) (2018)
- [Pitfalls of Graph Neural Network Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.05868/) (2018)
- [Weisfeiler and Leman Go Neural: Higher-order Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.02244/) (2018)
- [What Makes for Good Views for Contrastive Learning?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.10243/) (2020)
- [Heterogeneous Graph Attention Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.07293/) (2019)
- [Contrastive Multi-View Representation Learning on Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.05582/) (2020)
- [Deep Graph Contrastive Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.04131/) (2020)
- [Graph Contrastive Learning with Adaptive Augmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.14945/) (2020)
- [InfoGraph: Unsupervised and Semi-supervised Graph-Level Representation Learning via Mutual Information Maximization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.01000/) (2019)
- [Diffusion Improves Graph Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.05485/) (2019)
- [Improving Graph Neural Network Expressivity via Subgraph Isomorphism Counting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.09252/) (2020)
- [Graph Self-Supervised Learning: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00111/) (2021)
- [Graph Contrastive Learning Automated](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.07594/) (2021)
- [Can Graph Neural Networks Count Substructures?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.04025/) (2020)
- [Graph Representation Learning via Graphical Mutual Information Maximization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.01169/) (2020)
- [Adversarial Graph Augmentation to Improve Graph Contrastive Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05819/) (2021)
- [SimGRACE: A Simple Framework for Graph Contrastive Learning without Data Augmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.03104/) (2022)
- [Self-supervised Learning on Graphs: Contrastive, Generative,or Predictive](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.07342/) (2021)
- [An Empirical Study of Graph Contrastive Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.01116/) (2021)
- [AutoGCL: Automated Graph Contrastive Learning via Learnable View Generators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.10259/) (2021)
- [Revisiting Graph Contrastive Learning from the Perspective of Graph Spectrum](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02330/) (2022)
- [Multi-view Graph Contrastive Representation Learning for Drug-Drug Interaction Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11711/) (2020)
- [Spectral Augmentation for Self-Supervised Learning on Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.00643/) (2022)
- [Augmentations in Graph Contrastive Learning: Current Methodological Flaws & Towards Better Practices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.03220/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [GRAVER: Generative Graph Vocabularies for Robust Graph Foundation Models Fine-tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.05592/) (2025)
- [A Survey on Self-Supervised Graph Foundation Models: Knowledge-Based Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16137/) (2024)
- [HiTeC: Hierarchical Contrastive Learning on Text-Attributed Hypergraph with Semantic-Aware Augmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.03104/) (2025)
- [Graph Contrastive Learning versus Untrained Baselines: The Role of Dataset Size](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.01541/) (2025)
- [Cross-Paradigm Graph Backdoor Attacks with Promptable Subgraph Triggers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.22555/) (2025)
- [Cross-attentive Cohesive Subgraph Embedding to Mitigate Oversquashing in GNNs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.27529/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Graph contrastive learning (GCL) has emerged as a state-of-the-art strategy for learning representations of diverse graphs including social and biomedical networks. GCL widely uses stochastic graph topology augmentation, such as uniform node dropping, to generate augmented graphs. However, such stochastic augmentations may severely damage the intrinsic properties of a graph and deteriorate the following representation learning process. We argue that incorporating an awareness of cohesive subgraphs during the graph augmentation and learning processes has the potential to enhance GCL performance. To this end, we propose a novel unified framework called CTAug, to seamlessly integrate cohesion awareness into various existing GCL mechanisms. In particular, CTAug comprises two specialized modules: topology augmentation enhancement and graph learning enhancement. The former module generates augmented graphs that carefully preserve cohesion properties, while the latter module bolsters the graph encoder's ability to discern subgraph patterns. Theoretical analysis shows that CTAug can strictly improve existing GCL mechanisms. Empirical experiments verify that CTAug can achieve state-of-the-art performance for graph representation learning, especially for graphs with high degrees. The code is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10594093, or https://github.com/wuyucheng2002/CTAug.