# Gradient Alignment for Cross-Domain Face Anti-Spoofing

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.18817 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.18817/

## Key facts

- Cited by 27 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 45 of its 84 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 Feb 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 45)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.0575/) (2014)
- [Supervised Contrastive Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.11362/) (2020)
- [Sharpness-Aware Minimization for Efficiently Improving Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.01412/) (2020)
- [On Large-Batch Training for Deep Learning: Generalization Gap and Sharp Minima](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.04836/) (2016)
- [Averaging Weights Leads to Wider Optima and Better Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.05407/) (2018)
- [Visualizing the Loss Landscape of Neural Nets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.09913/) (2017)
- [CosFace: Large Margin Cosine Loss for Deep Face Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.09414/) (2018)
- [Joint Face Detection and Alignment using Multi-task Cascaded Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1604.02878/) (2016)
- [SphereFace: Deep Hypersphere Embedding for Face Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.08063/) (2017)
- [Loss Surfaces, Mode Connectivity, and Fast Ensembling of DNNs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.10026/) (2018)
- [Computing Nonvacuous Generalization Bounds for Deep (Stochastic) Neural Networks with Many More Parameters than Training Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.11008/) (2017)
- [SWAD: Domain Generalization by Seeking Flat Minima](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.08604/) (2021)
- [ASAM: Adaptive Sharpness-Aware Minimization for Scale-Invariant Learning of Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.11600/) (2021)
- [Gradient Matching for Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.09937/) (2021)
- [DeeperForensics-1.0: A Large-Scale Dataset for Real-World Face Forgery Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.03024/) (2020)
- [Searching Central Difference Convolutional Networks for Face Anti-Spoofing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.04092/) (2020)
- [Surrogate Gap Minimization Improves Sharpness-Aware Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.08065/) (2022)
- [Single-Side Domain Generalization for Face Anti-Spoofing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.14043/) (2020)
- [Efficient Sharpness-aware Minimization for Improved Training of Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.03141/) (2021)
- [Towards Efficient and Scalable Sharpness-Aware Minimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.02714/) (2022)
- [CelebA-Spoof: Large-Scale Face Anti-Spoofing Dataset with Rich Annotations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.12342/) (2020)
- [Sharpness-Aware Gradient Matching for Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.10353/) (2023)
- [Regularized Fine-grained Meta Face Anti-spoofing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.10771/) (2019)
- [face anti-spoofing based on color texture analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.06316/) (2015)
- [Deep Pixel-wise Binary Supervision for Face Presentation Attack Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.04047/) (2019)
- [Domain Generalization via Shuffled Style Assembly for Face Anti-Spoofing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.05340/) (2022)
- [PatchNet: A Simple Face Anti-Spoofing Framework via Fine-Grained Patch Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.14325/) (2022)
- [Self-Domain Adaptation for Face Anti-Spoofing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.12129/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 27 of 27)

- [FSFM: A Generalizable Face Security Foundation Model via Self-Supervised Facial Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.12032/) (2024)
- [Test-Time Domain Generalization for Face Anti-Spoofing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.19334/) (2024)
- [Gradient-Guided Annealing for Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.20162/) (2025)
- [FaceShield: Explainable Face Anti-Spoofing with Multimodal Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.09415/) (2025)
- [Confidence Aware Learning for Reliable Face Anti-spoofing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.01263/) (2024)
- [Optimal Transport-Guided Source-Free Adaptation for Face Anti-Spoofing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.22984/) (2025)
- [Benchmarking Unified Face Attack Detection via Hierarchical Prompt Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.13327/) (2025)
- [Harnessing Chain-of-Thought Reasoning in Multimodal Large Language Models for Face Anti-Spoofing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.01783/) (2025)
- [DADM: Dual Alignment of Domain and Modality for Face Anti-spoofing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.00429/) (2025)
- [Benchmarking Vision Foundation Models for Domain-Generalizable Face Anti-Spoofing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.19196/) (2026)
- [FA^{3}-CLIP: Frequency-Aware Cues Fusion and Attack-Agnostic Prompt Learning for Unified Face Attack Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.00454/) (2025)
- [Modality-Aware SAM: Sharpness-Aware-Minimization Driven Gradient Modulation for Harmonized Multimodal Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.24919/) (2025)
- [Probability Distribution Learning and Its Application in Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.05666/) (2024)
- [G2V2former: Graph Guided Video Vision Transformer for Face Anti-Spoofing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.07675/) (2024)
- [Meta Curvature-Aware Minimization for Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.11542/) (2024)
- [Enhancing Learnable Descriptive Convolutional Vision Transformer for Face Anti-Spoofing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.22936/) (2025)
- [Multi-View Slot Attention Using Paraphrased Texts for Face Anti-Spoofing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.06336/) (2025)
- [CPG-PAD: Concept-Informed Prompts Guided Presentation Attack Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.01303/) (2026)
- [Revisiting Face Forgery Detection: From Facial Representation to Forgery Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.16945/) (2024)
- [DGSAM: Domain Generalization via Individual Sharpness-Aware Minimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.23430/) (2025)
- [Suppressing Gradient Conflict for Generalizable Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.21530/) (2025)
- [Introducing Nylon Face Mask Attacks: A Dataset for Evaluating Generalised Face Presentation Attack Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.08114/) (2025)
- [Flatness and Gradient Alignment Are Both Necessary: Spectral-Aware Gradient-Aligned Exploration for Multi-Distribution Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.07914/) (2026)
- [DINO-VPT: Hierarchical Visual Prompt Tuning for Joint Physical-Digital Face Anti-Spoofing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.20900/) (2026)
- [FAS-R1: A Unified Multi-Task MLLM for Reasoning Face Anti-Spoofing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.26432/) (2026)
- [Primitive-Driven Compositional Forensic Visual Prompting for Open-World Face Anti-Spoofing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.17351/) (2026)
- [DIME: Scaling Facial Representation Learning via Differential Masked Autoencoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.17015/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recent advancements in domain generalization (DG) for face anti-spoofing (FAS) have garnered considerable attention. Traditional methods have focused on designing learning objectives and additional modules to isolate domain-specific features while retaining domain-invariant characteristics in their representations. However, such approaches often lack guarantees of consistent maintenance of domain-invariant features or the complete removal of domain-specific features. Furthermore, most prior works of DG for FAS do not ensure convergence to a local flat minimum, which has been shown to be advantageous for DG. In this paper, we introduce GAC-FAS, a novel learning objective that encourages the model to converge towards an optimal flat minimum without necessitating additional learning modules. Unlike conventional sharpness-aware minimizers, GAC-FAS identifies ascending points for each domain and regulates the generalization gradient updates at these points to align coherently with empirical risk minimization (ERM) gradient updates. This unique approach specifically guides the model to be robust against domain shifts. We demonstrate the efficacy of GAC-FAS through rigorous testing on challenging cross-domain FAS datasets, where it establishes state-of-the-art performance. The code is available at https://github.com/leminhbinh0209/CVPR24-FAS.