arXiv Machine Learning

eXplaining to Learn (eX2L): Regularization Using Contrastive Visual Explanation Pairs for Distribution Shifts

The paper introduces eXplaining to Learn (eX2L), an interpretable framework that regularizes a classifier by penalizing similarity between Grad‑CAM maps of the main label classifier and a confounder classifier. This approach decorrelates confounding features from latent representations during training. On the Spawrious Many‑to‑Many Hard Challenge benchmark, eX2L outperforms the current state‑of‑the‑art by 5.49% in average accuracy and 10.90% in worst‑group accuracy, while also demonstrating functional domain invariance through explicit label‑nuisance decoupling.

arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 2

SAGE: Subpopulation-Aware Generative Enhancement for Mitigating Spurious Correlations

SAGE (Subpopulation-Aware Generative Enhancement) is a two-stage generative augmentation framework designed to mitigate spurious correlations in machine learning when group labels are unavailable. It uses cluster-derived sub-labels and class labels to fine‑tune a conditional generative model and text encoder, producing synthetic data that fills underrepresented regions and creates a balanced validation set for last‑layer reweighting. Experiments show SAGE improves worst‑group accuracy to 89.5%, 85.7%, and 79.1% on Waterbirds, CelebA, and MetaShift, outperforming existing group‑label‑free baselines by up to 7.7 percentage points.

By Yiming Luo, Rongqiang Zhao, Jie Liu
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 21

CASE: Contrastive Activation for Class-Sensitive Explanations

The paper introduces a diagnostic test for class sensitivity in saliency methods, revealing that many popular techniques produce nearly identical explanations regardless of the predicted class. This limitation appears across different architectures and datasets, indicating a structural issue. To address this, the authors propose CASE, a contrastive explanation method that isolates features uniquely discriminative for the predicted class, and demonstrate its improved fidelity and class specificity through experiments.

By Dane Williamson, Yangfeng Ji, Matthew Dwyer
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 9

Are Classification Robustness and Explanation Robustness Really Strongly Correlated? An Analysis Through Input Loss Landscape

arXiv:2403. 06013v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: This paper delves into the critical area of deep learning robustness, challenging the conventional belief that classification robustness and explanation robustness in image classification systems are inherently correlated.

By Tiejin Chen, Wenwang Huang, Linsey Pang, Dongsheng Luo, Hua Wei
arXiv AI
Jun 24

Evaluating the Interpretability of Sparse Autoencoders with Concept Annotations

arXiv:2606. 24716v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Sparse autoencoders (SAEs) are increasingly used to extract interpretable concepts from vision and vision language models, yet existing evaluation methods largely rely on proxy metrics or qualitative inspection rather than measuring semantic correspondence.

By Jonas Klotz, Cassio F. Dantas, Pallavi Jain, Diego Marcos, Beg\"um Demir
arXiv AI
Aug 24

Explainable Deepfake Detection with Feature-robust Augmentation and Evidence-grounded Explanation Optimization

Explainable Deepfake Detection with Feature-robust Augmentation and Evidence-grounded Explanation Optimization proposes a new framework that improves deepfake detection and interpretability. The approach introduces Feature-robust Augmentation—diversified degradation-aware strategies combined with supervised contrastive learning and a mean-teacher architecture—to maintain accuracy on low-quality images. For explanations, it employs evidence-grounded preference optimization, guiding the model to focus on genuine manipulation traces by learning from chosen-rejected explanation pairs that omit evidence or inject irrelevant details. The method achieved first place in the ACM Multimedia 2026 Explainable Deepfake Detection Challenge and is publicly available on GitHub.

By Zhu Xu, Jiaqi Tang, Pokai Chen, Yuxin Peng, Yang Liu