# LaplaceConfidence: a Graph-based Approach for Learning with Noisy Labels

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.16614 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.16614/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 46 of its 62 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 31 Jul 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 46)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [mixup: Beyond Empirical Risk Minimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.09412/) (2017)
- [Supervised Contrastive Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.11362/) (2020)
- [RandAugment: Practical automated data augmentation with a reduced search space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.13719/) (2019)
- [FixMatch: Simplifying Semi-Supervised Learning with Consistency and Confidence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.07685/) (2020)
- [Identity Mappings in Deep Residual Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.05027/) (2016)
- [Understanding deep learning requires rethinking generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.03530/) (2016)
- [Inception-v4, Inception-ResNet and the Impact of Residual Connections on Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.07261/) (2016)
- [MixMatch: A Holistic Approach to Semi-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.02249/) (2019)
- [Co-teaching: Robust Training of Deep Neural Networks with Extremely Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.06872/) (2018)
- [A Closer Look at Memorization in Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.05394/) (2017)
- [DivideMix: Learning with Noisy Labels as Semi-supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.07394/) (2020)
- [Making Deep Neural Networks Robust to Label Noise: a Loss Correction Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.03683/) (2016)
- [MentorNet: Learning Data-Driven Curriculum for Very Deep Neural Networks on Corrupted Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.05055/) (2017)
- [Learning from Noisy Labels with Deep Neural Networks: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.08199/) (2020)
- [Pseudo-Labeling and Confirmation Bias in Deep Semi-Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.02983/) (2019)
- [Regularizing Neural Networks by Penalizing Confident Output Distributions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1701.06548/) (2017)
- [How does Disagreement Help Generalization against Label Corruption?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.04215/) (2019)
- [SCAN: Learning to Classify Images without Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.12320/) (2020)
- [Unsupervised Label Noise Modeling and Loss Correction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.11238/) (2019)
- [Training Deep Neural Networks on Noisy Labels with Bootstrapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6596/) (2014)
- [Joint Optimization Framework for Learning with Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.11364/) (2018)
- [WebVision Database: Visual Learning and Understanding from Web Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.02862/) (2017)
- [Probabilistic End-to-end Noise Correction for Learning with Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.07788/) (2019)
- [Understanding and Utilizing Deep Neural Networks Trained with Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.05040/) (2019)
- [CleanNet: Transfer Learning for Scalable Image Classifier Training with Label Noise](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.07131/) (2017)
- [Dimensionality-Driven Learning with Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.02612/) (2018)
- [Learning to Learn from Noisy Labeled Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.05214/) (2018)
- [NLNL: Negative Learning for Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.07387/) (2019)
- [A Survey of Label-noise Representation Learning: Past, Present and Future](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.04406/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [GFLC: Graph-based Fairness-aware Label Correction for Fair Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.15620/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In real-world applications, perfect labels are rarely available, making it challenging to develop robust machine learning algorithms that can handle noisy labels. Recent methods have focused on filtering noise based on the discrepancy between model predictions and given noisy labels, assuming that samples with small classification losses are clean. This work takes a different approach by leveraging the consistency between the learned model and the entire noisy dataset using the rich representational and topological information in the data. We introduce LaplaceConfidence, a method that to obtain label confidence (i.e., clean probabilities) utilizing the Laplacian energy. Specifically, it first constructs graphs based on the feature representations of all noisy samples and minimizes the Laplacian energy to produce a low-energy graph. Clean labels should fit well into the low-energy graph while noisy ones should not, allowing our method to determine data's clean probabilities. Furthermore, LaplaceConfidence is embedded into a holistic method for robust training, where co-training technique generates unbiased label confidence and label refurbishment technique better utilizes it. We also explore the dimensionality reduction technique to accommodate our method on large-scale noisy datasets. Our experiments demonstrate that LaplaceConfidence outperforms state-of-the-art methods on benchmark datasets under both synthetic and real-world noise.