# Active Negative Loss: A Robust Framework for Learning with Noisy Labels

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.02373 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.02373/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 36 of its 62 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 3 Dec 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 36)

- [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)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Mask R-CNN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06870/) (2017)
- [Fully Convolutional Networks for Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.4038/) (2014)
- [Understanding deep learning requires rethinking generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.03530/) (2016)
- [Co-teaching: Robust Training of Deep Neural Networks with Extremely Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.06872/) (2018)
- [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)
- [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)
- [Skin Lesion Analysis Toward Melanoma Detection: A Challenge at the 2017 International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI), Hosted by the International Skin Imaging Collaboration (ISIC)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.05006/) (2017)
- [Symmetric Cross Entropy for Robust Learning with Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.06112/) (2019)
- [Robust Loss Functions under Label Noise for Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.09482/) (2017)
- [Early-Learning Regularization Prevents Memorization of Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.00151/) (2020)
- [Joint Optimization Framework for Learning with Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.11364/) (2018)
- [Contrastive Clustering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.09687/) (2020)
- [WebVision Database: Visual Learning and Understanding from Web Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.02862/) (2017)
- [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)
- [Gradient Descent with Early Stopping is Provably Robust to Label Noise for Overparameterized Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.11680/) (2019)
- [NLNL: Negative Learning for Noisy Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.07387/) (2019)
- [Active Bias: Training More Accurate Neural Networks by Emphasizing High Variance Samples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.07433/) (2017)
- [Robust Learning with Jacobian Regularization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.02729/) (2019)
- [A Survey of Label-noise Representation Learning: Past, Present and Future](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.04406/) (2020)
- [Robust Large Margin Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1605.08254/) (2016)
- [Meta Label Correction for Noisy Label Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.03809/) (2019)
- [Learning with Biased Complementary Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.09535/) (2017)
- [Learning from Complementary Labels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.07541/) (2017)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Can we Trust Unreliable Voxels? Exploring 3D Semantic Occupancy Prediction under Label Noise](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.06279/) (2026)
- [Robust Classification under Noisy Labels: A Geometry-Aware Reliability Framework for Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.00202/) (2025)
- [Generalizing Abstention for Noise-Robust Learning in Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.14039/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Deep supervised learning has achieved remarkable success across a wide range of tasks, yet it remains susceptible to overfitting when confronted with noisy labels. To address this issue, noise-robust loss functions offer an effective solution for enhancing learning in the presence of label noise. In this work, we systematically investigate the limitation of the recently proposed Active Passive Loss (APL), which employs Mean Absolute Error (MAE) as its passive loss function. Despite the robustness brought by MAE, one of its key drawbacks is that it pays equal attention to clean and noisy samples; this feature slows down convergence and potentially makes training difficult, particularly in large-scale datasets. To overcome these challenges, we introduce a novel loss function class, termed Normalized Negative Loss Functions (NNLFs), which serve as passive loss functions within the APL framework. NNLFs effectively address the limitations of MAE by concentrating more on memorized clean samples. By replacing MAE in APL with our proposed NNLFs, we enhance APL and present a new framework called Active Negative Loss (ANL). Moreover, in non-symmetric noise scenarios, we propose an entropy-based regularization technique to mitigate the vulnerability to the label imbalance. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the new loss functions adopted by our ANL framework can achieve better or comparable performance to state-of-the-art methods across various label noise types and in image segmentation tasks. The source code is available at: https://github.com/Virusdoll/Active-Negative-Loss.