Coordinate revealment

ID: coordinate-revealment

The coordinate revealment of coordinate for a decision tree under input probability distribution is
It depends on the chosen decision tree and the probability distribution, not just on the Boolean function. Since no coordinate is queried twice on a graph path, indicator functions give
The second equality uses linearity of expectation; it does not require independence of random variables or a product measure. The cited paper defines these inspection probabilities and their sum for product measures; the displayed indicator function argument extends the identity to any input probability distribution.[ref]
For the three-bit majority decision tree under the discrete uniform distribution, , whose sum is . Reading coordinate 3 first, then coordinate 1, and stopping on agreement gives the same majority function, depth and expected query cost, but coordinate revealments . The asymmetry belongs to the chosen query order. Parity gives for every exact decision tree without repeated queries. If repeated queries were charged, inspection probabilities would count distinct coordinates; total query count would instead require expected multiplicities.

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