Inferring Targets from Calibrated Hesitations via Mutual Information Maximization in Multi-Behavior Recommendation
Abstract
Multi-behavior recommendation enriches user preference modeling by incorporating diverse auxiliary interactions. However, most existing methods simply treat interactions without target behaviors as absolute negative feedback. This strategy ignores an important intermediate state known as user hesitation, where users exhibit strong intent but fail to complete the final conversion due to various reasons. Consequently, models cannot distinguish true disinterest from intended but hesitant behavior, which introduces substantial noise into preference modeling. To address this issue, we propose a novel framework named Calibrated Hesitation Analysis for Multi-Behavior Recommendation via Mutual Information Maximization (CHARM). Specifically, we aggregate auxiliary behaviors that lead to successful conversions into latent intent representations and train an inference network by maximizing the mutual information between these intents and observed target behaviors. We then apply this network to auxiliary behaviors without conversion, under the assumption that the conversion had occurred, in order to infer latent conversion probabilities and identify high-intent hesitation candidates. Furthermore, to distinguish genuine hesitation from interaction termination caused by competing item choices, we design a competitor substitution penalty strategy to refine hesitation confidence scores. Finally, the calibrated hesitation set is incorporated into the recommendation process to improve ranking quality. Extensive experiments on three real-world datasets demonstrate that CHARM consistently outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods. The source code is available at https://github.com/city59/CHARM.
Assigned reviewers
| # | Reviewer | Match | Why (closest evidence publications in the taxonomy) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yang Song 0008 | 48 | 79 Understanding and Modeling Passive-Negative Feedback for Short-video Sequential Recommendation (2023) Multi-Behavior Recommendation 73 Leveraging Watch-time Feedback for Short-Video Recommendations: A Causal Labeling Framework (2023) Explainable and Causal Recommendation 65 Learning and Optimization of Implicit Negative Feedback for Industrial Short-video Recommender System (2023) Multi-Behavior and Multi-Interest Sequential Recommendation |
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| 2 | Ziru Liu | 46 | 71 Modeling User Retention through Generative Flow Networks (2024) Multi-Behavior Recommendation 66 Sequential Recommendation for Optimizing Both Immediate Feedback and Long-term Retention (2024) Multi-Behavior and Multi-Interest Sequential Recommendation 65 KuaiSim: A Comprehensive Simulator for Recommender Systems (2023) Recommendation Systems and Evaluation |
Area chair
| Area chair | Match | |
|---|---|---|
| Yanan Niu | 52 |
Area-chair candidates (4)
| Yanan Niu assigned | 52 | 15 papers | |
| Xin Xin 0003 | 46 | 10 papers | |
| Leyu Lin | 45 | 15 papers | |
| Kun Gai | 43 | 5 papers |
Candidates from the panel ranked by match score
| # | Reviewer | Match | Load | Why | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Bo Peng 0009 | 50 | 3 | 58 M2: Mixed Models With Preferences, Popularities and Transitions for Next-Basket Recommendation (2023) Efficient and Long-Sequence Sequential Recommendation 56 Intention enhanced mixed attentive model for session-based recommendation (2024) Graph-Based Sequential and Session Recommendation |
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| 3 | Fei Sun 0001 | 50 | 3 | 63 Multi-Behavior Sequential Modeling with Transition-Aware Graph Attention Network for E-Commerce Recommendation (2026) Sequential and Session-Based Graph Recommendation 56 Improving End-to-End Sequential Recommendations with Intent-aware Diversification (2020) Multi-Behavior and Multi-Interest Sequential Recommendation |
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| 4 | Jianling Wang | 48 | 3 | 58 A Hierarchical Self-Attentive Model for Recommending User-Generated Item Lists (2019) Efficient and Long-Sequence Sequential Recommendation 56 Adaptive Hierarchical Translation-based Sequential Recommendation (2020) Graph-Based Sequential and Session Recommendation |
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| 5 | Wei Guo 0006 | 48 | 3 | 79 Multi-Behavior Sequential Transformer Recommender (2022) Multi-Behavior and Multi-Interest Sequential Recommendation 53 Dataset Regeneration for Sequential Recommendation (2024) Recommendation Systems and Evaluation |
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| 6 | Yang Song 0008 assigned | 48 | 3 | 79 Understanding and Modeling Passive-Negative Feedback for Short-video Sequential Recommendation (2023) Multi-Behavior Recommendation 73 Leveraging Watch-time Feedback for Short-Video Recommendations: A Causal Labeling Framework (2023) Explainable and Causal Recommendation |
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| 7 | Shuchang Liu 0001 | 48 | 3 | 71 Stratified Expert Cloning for Retention-Aware Recommendation at Scale (2025) Multi-Behavior Recommendation 58 Multi-Task Recommendations with Reinforcement Learning (2023) Offline RL for Recommendation |
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| 8 | Yongjing Hao | 47 | 3 | 71 Click is not equal to purchase: multi-task reinforcement learning for multi-behavior recommendation (2023) Multi-Behavior Recommendation 71 Click is Not Equal to Purchase: Multi-task Reinforcement Learning for Multi-behavior Recommendation (2022) Multi-Behavior Recommendation |
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| 10 | Ziru Liu assigned | 46 | 3 | 71 Modeling User Retention through Generative Flow Networks (2024) Multi-Behavior Recommendation 66 Sequential Recommendation for Optimizing Both Immediate Feedback and Long-term Retention (2024) Multi-Behavior and Multi-Interest Sequential Recommendation |
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| 12 | Yong He 0009 | 45 | 3 | 50 Task Similarity Aware Meta Learning for Cold-Start Recommendation (2022) Meta-Learning for Cold-Start Recommendation 49 An Industrial Framework for Cold-Start Recommendation in Zero-Shot Scenarios (2022) Content and Attribute-Based Cold-Start Recommendation |
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| 13 | Jinxin Hu | 45 | 3 | 56 RCLRec: Reverse Curriculum Learning for Modeling Sparse Conversions in Generative Recommendation (2026) Generative Retrieval and Ranking 55 SASNet: Stage-aware Sequential Matching for Online Travel Recommendation (2022) Sequential Recommendation with User Modeling and Profiling |
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| 14 | Bo Chen 0023 | 45 | 3 | 67 Compressed Interaction Graph based Framework for Multi-behavior Recommendation (2023) Sequential and Session-Based Graph Recommendation 51 ReLLa: Retrieval-enhanced Large Language Models for Lifelong Sequential Behavior Comprehension in Recommendation (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
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| 15 | Seongmin Park 0002 | 45 | 3 | 57 Temporal Linear Item-Item Model for Sequential Recommendation (2025) Efficient and Long-Sequence Sequential Recommendation 55 MUFFIN: Mixture of User-Adaptive Frequency Filtering for Sequential Recommendation (2025) Sequential Recommendation with User Modeling and Profiling |
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| 16 | Lantao Hu | 44 | 3 | 53 Modeling User Fatigue for Sequential Recommendation (2024) Contrastive and Self-Supervised Sequential Recommendation 50 Sequential Recommendation for Optimizing Both Immediate Feedback and Long-term Retention (2024) Multi-Behavior and Multi-Interest Sequential Recommendation |
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| 17 | Junwei Pan | 44 | 3 | 54 Multi-Sequence Attentive User Representation Learning for Side-information Integrated Sequential Recommendation (2024) Sequential Recommendation with Side and Multimodal Information 49 Decoupled Training: Return of Frustratingly Easy Multi-Domain Learning (2024) Multi-Domain and Multi-Market Recommendation |
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| 18 | Jiangxia Cao | 44 | 3 | 61 From Agnostic to Specific: Latent Preference Diffusion for Multi-Behavior Sequential Recommendation (2026) Diffusion and Flow Recommenders 53 Contrastive Cross-Domain Sequential Recommendation (2022) Cross-Domain and Cross-Market Sequential Recommendation |
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| 19 | Zhengyi Yang 0007 | 44 | 3 | 50 LLaRA: Large Language-Recommendation Assistant (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 47 A Bi-Step Grounding Paradigm for Large Language Models in Recommendation Systems (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
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| 20 | Bowen Zheng 0005 | 44 | 3 | 55 Reciprocal Sequential Recommendation (2023) Sequential Recommendation with User Modeling and Profiling 51 Enhancing Sequential Recommender with Large Language Models for Joint Video and Comment Recommendation (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
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| 21 | James Caverlee | 44 | 3 | 53 Sequential Recommendation for Cold-start Users with Meta Transitional Learning (2021) Sequential Recommendation with User Modeling and Profiling 52 Session-based Recommendation with Hypergraph Attention Networks (2021) Sequential and Session-Based Graph Recommendation |
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| 22 | Ke Fei | 44 | 3 | 46 Stable and Adaptive Fusion for Multi-domain Multi-task Recommendation (2026) Multi-Scenario and Multi-Domain CTR Prediction 42 Sharpness-Consistent Cross-Domain Recommendation for Cold-Start Items (2026) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
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| 23 | Chunyang Wang 0001 | 44 | 3 | 53 MESA: Plugin Meta-Modulation for Transformer-Based Cold-Start Sequential Recommendation (2026) Sequential Recommendation with User Modeling and Profiling 52 Graph Diffusion-Based Representation Learning for Sequential Recommendation (2024) Sequential and Session-Based Graph Recommendation |
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| 25 | Yuta Saito | 43 | 3 | 47 Evaluating the Robustness of Off-Policy Evaluation (2021) Recommendation Systems and Evaluation 46 Off-Policy Evaluation of Ranking Policies under Diverse User Behavior (2023) Recommendation with Search and Ranking |
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| 26 | Chongming Gao | 43 | 3 | 50 KuaiRec: A Fully-observed Dataset and Insights for Evaluating Recommender Systems (2022) Recommendation Systems and Evaluation 46 Large Language Models are Learnable Planners for Long-Term Recommendation (2024) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 27 | Qiang Luo 0004 | 42 | 3 | 55 FIM: Frequency-Aware Multi-View Interest Modeling for Local-Life Service Recommendation (2025) Sequential Recommendation with User Modeling and Profiling 50 MPFormer: Adaptive Framework for Industrial Multi-Task Personalized Sequential Retriever (2025) Multi-Task and Multi-Objective Optimization |
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| 28 | Jin Chen 0008 | 42 | 3 | 79 Enhancing Multi-Behavior Sequential Recommenders with Behavior-Aware Regularization (2025) Multi-Behavior Recommendation 50 RecStudio: Towards a Highly-Modularized Recommender System (2023) Recommendation Systems and Evaluation |
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| 29 | Han Li 0005 | 42 | 3 | 71 Stratified Expert Cloning for Retention-Aware Recommendation at Scale (2025) Long-Term Engagement and Retention Optimization 51 Enhancing Sequential Recommender with Large Language Models for Joint Video and Comment Recommendation (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
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| 30 | Hao Liu 0078 | 42 | 3 | 50 WeaveRec: An LLM-Based Cross-Domain Sequential Recommendation Framework with Model Merging (2026) Efficiency and Deployment 46 MCRPL: A Pretrain, Prompt, and Fine-tune Paradigm for Non-overlapping Many-to-one Cross-domain Recommendation (2024) Domain Adaptation and Disentangled Representation for CDR |
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| 31 | Xuanhua Yang | 42 | 3 | 51 Hierarchical User Long-term Behavior Modeling for Click-Through Rate Prediction (2025) CTR and Conversion Rate Prediction 45 Breaking the Relevance-Diversity Seesaw: Hierarchical LLM Reasoning with RL for Industrial Novelty Recommendation (2026) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 32 | Chen Wang 0052 | 42 | 3 | 56 Sequential Recommendation with Auxiliary Item Relationships via Multi-Relational Transformer (2022) Graph-Based Sequential and Session Recommendation 54 Cluster-Aware Item Prompt Learning for Session-Based Recommendation (2025) LLM-Enhanced Sequential Recommendation |
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| 33 | Yongxin Ni | 42 | 3 | 63 Global and Personalized Graphs for Heterogeneous Sequential Recommendation by Learning Behavior Transitions and User Intentions (2022) Sequential and Session-Based Graph Recommendation 51 Bridging NIP and MLM: A Unified Meta-Learning Framework for Sequential Recommendation (2026) Meta-Learning for Cold-Start Recommendation |
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| 34 | Yimeng Bai | 42 | 3 | 50 Leveraging Watch-time Feedback for Short-Video Recommendations: A Causal Labeling Framework (2023) Recommendation Systems and Evaluation 50 LabelCraft: Empowering Short Video Recommendations with Automated Label Crafting (2024) Recommendation Systems and Evaluation |