# Statistical Inference for Clustering-based Anomaly Detection

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.18633 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.18633/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 25 of its 49 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Apr 2025.

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

- [Exact post-selection inference, with application to the lasso](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1311.6238/) (2013)
- [Optimal Inference After Model Selection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1410.2597/) (2014)
- [Exact Post-Selection Inference for Sequential Regression Procedures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1401.3889/) (2014)
- [Selective Inference for Hierarchical Clustering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.02936/) (2020)
- [Valid Inference Corrected for Outlier Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.10635/) (2017)
- [Testing for a Change in Mean After Changepoint Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.04291/) (2019)
- [Computing Valid p-value for Optimal Changepoint by Selective Inference using Dynamic Programming](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.09132/) (2020)
- [More Powerful Conditional Selective Inference for Generalized Lasso by Parametric Programming](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.04920/) (2021)
- [Computing Valid p-values for Image Segmentation by Selective Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.00629/) (2019)
- [More powerful post-selection inference, with application to the Lasso](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.09037/) (2018)
- [Quantifying Statistical Significance of Neural Network-based Image Segmentation by Selective Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.01823/) (2020)
- [Post-Selection Inference for Changepoint Detection Algorithms with Application to Copy Number Variation Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.03644/) (2018)
- [A significance test for forward stepwise model selection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.3920/) (2014)
- [Selective Sequential Model Selection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.02565/) (2015)
- [Valid P-Value for Deep Learning-Driven Salient Region](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.02437/) (2023)
- [Conditional Selective Inference for Robust Regression and Outlier Detection using Piecewise-Linear Homotopy Continuation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.10840/) (2021)
- [Fast and More Powerful Selective Inference for Sparse High-order Interaction Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.04929/) (2021)
- [Tree-Values: selective inference for regression trees](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.07816/) (2021)
- [Post Selection Inference with Kernels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.03725/) (2016)
- [Selective Inference for Change Point Detection in Multi-dimensional Sequences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.00514/) (2017)
- [Valid and Exact Statistical Inference for Multi-dimensional Multiple Change-Points by Selective Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.08989/) (2021)
- [Exact Statistical Inference for the Wasserstein Distance by Selective Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.14206/) (2021)
- [Statistical Test for Attention Map in Vision Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.08169/) (2024)
- [Quantifying Statistical Significance of Deep Nearest Neighbor Anomaly Detection via Selective Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.12978/) (2025)
- [Controllable RANSAC-based Anomaly Detection via Hypothesis Testing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.15133/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Unsupervised anomaly detection (AD) is a fundamental problem in machine learning and statistics. A popular approach to unsupervised AD is clustering-based detection. However, this method lacks the ability to guarantee the reliability of the detected anomalies. In this paper, we propose SI-CLAD (Statistical Inference for CLustering-based Anomaly Detection), a novel statistical framework for testing the clustering-based AD results. The key strength of SI-CLAD lies in its ability to rigorously control the probability of falsely identifying anomalies, maintaining it below a pre-specified significance level α (e.g., α = 0.05). By analyzing the selection mechanism inherent in clustering-based AD and leveraging the Selective Inference (SI) framework, we prove that false detection control is attainable. Moreover, we introduce a strategy to boost the true detection rate, enhancing the overall performance of SI-CLAD. Extensive experiments on synthetic and real-world datasets provide strong empirical support for our theoretical findings, showcasing the superior performance of the proposed method.