# Robust Testing for Deep Learning using Human Label Noise

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.00244 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.00244/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 25 of its 34 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 Nov 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 25 of 25)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [Distilling the Knowledge in a Neural Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.02531/) (2015)
- [Rethinking the Inception Architecture for Computer Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.00567/) (2015)
- [mixup: Beyond Empirical Risk Minimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.09412/) (2017)
- [CutMix: Regularization Strategy to Train Strong Classifiers with Localizable Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.04899/) (2019)
- [Generalized Cross Entropy Loss for Training Deep Neural Networks with Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.07836/) (2018)
- [A Closer Look at Memorization in Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.05394/) (2017)
- [Learning from Noisy Labels with Deep Neural Networks: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.08199/) (2020)
- [Symmetric Cross Entropy for Robust Learning with Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.06112/) (2019)
- [What Neural Networks Memorize and Why: Discovering the Long Tail via Influence Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.03703/) (2020)
- [Does Learning Require Memorization? A Short Tale about a Long Tail](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.05271/) (2019)
- [Confident Learning: Estimating Uncertainty in Dataset Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.00068/) (2019)
- [How does Disagreement Help Generalization against Label Corruption?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.04215/) (2019)
- [Normalized Loss Functions for Deep Learning with Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.13554/) (2020)
- [Learning with Noisy Labels Revisited: A Study Using Real-World Human Annotations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.12088/) (2021)
- [Generalisation in humans and deep neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.08750/) (2018)
- [Human uncertainty makes classification more robust](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.07086/) (2019)
- [Understanding and Utilizing Deep Neural Networks Trained with Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.05040/) (2019)
- [Learning with Feature-Dependent Label Noise: A Progressive Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.07756/) (2021)
- [Label Noise Types and Their Effects on Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.10471/) (2020)
- [Meta Soft Label Generation for Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.05836/) (2020)
- [Label-Retrieval-Augmented Diffusion Models for Learning from Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.19518/) (2023)
- [Detecting Label Errors by using Pre-Trained Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.12702/) (2022)
- [Bootstrapping the Relationship Between Images and Their Clean and Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.08826/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In deep learning (DL) systems, label noise in training datasets often degrades model performance, as models may learn incorrect patterns from mislabeled data. The area of Learning with Noisy Labels (LNL) has introduced methods to effectively train DL models in the presence of noisily-labeled datasets. Traditionally, these methods are tested using synthetic label noise, where ground truth labels are randomly (and automatically) flipped. However, recent findings highlight that models perform substantially worse under human label noise than synthetic label noise, indicating a need for more realistic test scenarios that reflect noise introduced due to imperfect human labeling. This underscores the need for generating realistic noisy labels that simulate human label noise, enabling rigorous testing of deep neural networks without the need to collect new human-labeled datasets. To address this gap, we present Cluster-Based Noise (CBN), a method for generating feature-dependent noise that simulates human-like label noise. Using insights from our case study of label memorization in the CIFAR-10N dataset, we design CBN to create more realistic tests for evaluating LNL methods. Our experiments demonstrate that current LNL methods perform worse when tested using CBN, highlighting its use as a rigorous approach to testing neural networks. Next, we propose Soft Neighbor Label Sampling (SNLS), a method designed to handle CBN, demonstrating its improvement over existing techniques in tackling this more challenging type of noise.