# DCBM: Data-Efficient Visual Concept Bottleneck Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.11576 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.11576/

## Key facts

- Cited by 16 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 48 of its 71 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Dec 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 48)

- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [Segment Anything](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.02643/) (2023)
- [End-to-End Object Detection with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.12872/) (2020)
- [Mask R-CNN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06870/) (2017)
- [Grad-CAM: Visual Explanations from Deep Networks via Gradient-based Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02391/) (2016)
- ["Why Should I Trust You?": Explaining the Predictions of Any Classifier](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.04938/) (2016)
- [Deep Learning Face Attributes in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.7766/) (2014)
- [Grounding DINO: Marrying DINO with Grounded Pre-Training for Open-Set Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.05499/) (2023)
- [SAM 2: Segment Anything in Images and Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.00714/) (2024)
- [The Many Faces of Robustness: A Critical Analysis of Out-of-Distribution Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.16241/) (2020)
- [Sparse Autoencoders Find Highly Interpretable Features in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.08600/) (2023)
- [Representation Engineering: A Top-Down Approach to AI Transparency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.01405/) (2023)
- [Concept Bottleneck Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.04612/) (2020)
- [This Looks Like That: Deep Learning for Interpretable Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.10574/) (2018)
- [LLaVA-NeXT-Interleave: Tackling Multi-image, Video, and 3D in Large Multimodal Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.07895/) (2024)
- [Mind the Gap: Understanding the Modality Gap in Multi-modal Contrastive Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.02053/) (2022)
- [Zero-Shot Learning -- A Comprehensive Evaluation of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.00600/) (2017)
- [Towards Robust Interpretability with Self-Explaining Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.07538/) (2018)
- [Visual Classification via Description from Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.07183/) (2022)
- [Top-down Neural Attention by Excitation Backprop](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.00507/) (2016)
- [Generic Attention-model Explainability for Interpreting Bi-Modal and Encoder-Decoder Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.15679/) (2021)
- [Language in a Bottle: Language Model Guided Concept Bottlenecks for Interpretable Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.11158/) (2022)
- [Recognize Anything: A Strong Image Tagging Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03514/) (2023)
- [Post-hoc Concept Bottleneck Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.15480/) (2022)
- [Label-Free Concept Bottleneck Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.06129/) (2023)
- [Detect What You Can: Detecting and Representing Objects using Holistic Models and Body Parts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1406.2031/) (2014)
- [Neural Prototype Trees for Interpretable Fine-grained Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.02046/) (2020)
- [CRAFT: Concept Recursive Activation FacTorization for Explainability](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.10154/) (2022)
- [Task-Driven Modular Networks for Zero-Shot Compositional Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.05908/) (2019)
- [Invertible Concept-based Explanations for CNN Models with Non-negative Concept Activation Vectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.15417/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 16 of 16)

- [Object Centric Concept Bottlenecks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.24492/) (2025)
- [Graph Concept Bottleneck Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.14255/) (2025)
- [Partially Shared Concept Bottleneck Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.22170/) (2025)
- [Rethinking Concept Bottleneck Models: From Pitfalls to Solutions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.05629/) (2026)
- [Prototype-Grounded Concept Models for Verifiable Concept Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.16076/) (2026)
- [Concepts Worth Having: Refining VLM-Guided Concept Bottleneck Models with Minimal Annotations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.16405/) (2026)
- [CLIP-Free, Label Free, Unsupervised Concept Bottleneck Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.10981/) (2025)
- [Corner Cases: How Size and Position of Objects Challenge ImageNet-Trained Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.03569/) (2025)
- [The Describe-Then-Generate Bottleneck: How VLM Descriptions Alter Image Generation Outcomes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.18179/) (2025)
- [Concepts in Motion: Temporal Concept Bottleneck Model for Interpretable Video Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.20899/) (2025)
- [Caption Bottleneck Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.00578/) (2026)
- [Spatially Grounded Concept-Based Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.04180/) (2025)
- [Coverage-aware Semantic Representation Learning for Underrepresented Visual Concepts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.16917/) (2026)
- [DINO-QPM: Adapting Visual Foundation Models for Globally Interpretable Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.07166/) (2026)
- [Spatially Grounded Concept Bottleneck Models via Part-Factorized Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.04364/) (2026)
- [TRACE: A Concept Bottleneck Model for Longitudinal 3D Glioblastoma Response Assessment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.30313/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Concept Bottleneck Models (CBMs) enhance the interpretability of neural networks by basing predictions on human-understandable concepts. However, current CBMs typically rely on concept sets extracted from large language models or extensive image corpora, limiting their effectiveness in data-sparse scenarios. We propose Data-efficient CBMs (DCBMs), which reduce the need for large sample sizes during concept generation while preserving interpretability. DCBMs define concepts as image regions detected by segmentation or detection foundation models, allowing each image to generate multiple concepts across different granularities. This removes reliance on textual descriptions and large-scale pre-training, making DCBMs applicable for fine-grained classification and out-of-distribution tasks. Attribution analysis using Grad-CAM demonstrates that DCBMs deliver visual concepts that can be localized in test images. By leveraging dataset-specific concepts instead of predefined ones, DCBMs enhance adaptability to new domains.