Are all outliers alike? On Understanding the Diversity of Outliers for Detecting OODs
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Abstract (arXiv)
Deep neural networks (DNNs) are known to produce incorrect predictions with very high confidence on out-of-distribution (OOD) inputs. This limitation is one of the key challenges in the adoption of deep learning models in high-assurance systems such as autonomous driving, air traffic management, and medical diagnosis. This challenge has received significant attention recently, and several techniques have been developed to detect inputs where the model's prediction cannot be trusted. These techniques use different statistical, geometric, or topological signatures. This paper presents a taxonomy of OOD outlier inputs based on their source and nature of uncertainty. We demonstrate how different existing detection approaches fail to detect certain types of outliers. We utilize these insights to develop a novel integrated detection approach that uses multiple attributes corresponding to different types of outliers. Our results include experiments on CIFAR10, SVHN and MNIST as in-distribution data and Imagenet, LSUN, SVHN (for CIFAR10), CIFAR10 (for SVHN), KMNIST, and F-MNIST as OOD data across different DNN architectures such as ResNet34, WideResNet, DenseNet, and LeNet5.
Key facts. Cited by 9 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 22 of its 39 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 23 Mar 2021.
Builds on
22 of 39 references.
References · 22
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10 more
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Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2021: 2; 2022: 3; 2023: 2; 2024: 0; 2025: 1; 2026: 1.
9 papers.
- 2021Mixture Outlier Exposure: Towards Out-of-Distribution Detection in Fine-grained Environmentscited by 65
- 2022iDECODe: In-distribution Equivariance for Conformal Out-of-distribution Detectioncited by 27
- 2022Out-of-Distribution Detection for LiDAR-based 3D Object Detectioncited by 17
- 2023Using Semantic Information for Defining and Detecting OOD Inputscited by 6
- 2023A Plot is Worth a Thousand Words: Model Information Stealing Attacks via Scientific Plotscited by 4
- 2021FROB: Few-shot ROBust Model for Classification and Out-of-Distribution Detectioncited by 2
- 2022Disentangling Confidence Score Distribution for Out-of-Domain Intent Detection with Energy-Based Learningcited by 2
- 2025Polysemantic Dropout: Conformal OOD Detection for Specialized LLMscited by 2
- 2026Rethinking external validation for the target population: Capturing patient-level similarity with a generative modelcited by 0
- 2026Rethinking external validation for the target population: Capturing patient-level similarity with a generative model11 May 2026
- 2025Polysemantic Dropout: Conformal OOD Detection for Specialized LLMs4 Sep 2025
- 2023A Plot is Worth a Thousand Words: Model Information Stealing Attacks via Scientific Plots23 Feb 2023
- 2023Using Semantic Information for Defining and Detecting OOD Inputs21 Feb 2023
- 2022Disentangling Confidence Score Distribution for Out-of-Domain Intent Detection with Energy-Based Learning17 Oct 2022
- 2022Out-of-Distribution Detection for LiDAR-based 3D Object Detection28 Sep 2022
- 2022iDECODe: In-distribution Equivariance for Conformal Out-of-distribution Detection7 Jan 2022
- 2021FROB: Few-shot ROBust Model for Classification and Out-of-Distribution Detection30 Nov 2021
- 2021Mixture Outlier Exposure: Towards Out-of-Distribution Detection in Fine-grained Environments7 Jun 2021