# LAMM-ViT: AI Face Detection via Layer-Aware Modulation of Region-Guided Attention

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.07734 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.07734/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 29 of its 38 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 May 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 29 of 29)

- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [Grad-CAM: Visual Explanations from Deep Networks via Gradient-based Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02391/) (2016)
- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [FaceForensics++: Learning to Detect Manipulated Facial Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.08971/) (2019)
- [CNN-generated images are surprisingly easy to spot... for now](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.11035/) (2019)
- [Thinking in Frequency: Face Forgery Detection by Mining Frequency-aware Clues](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.09355/) (2020)
- [Leveraging Frequency Analysis for Deep Fake Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.08685/) (2020)
- [Towards Universal Fake Image Detectors that Generalize Across Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.10174/) (2023)
- [Face X-ray for More General Face Forgery Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.13458/) (2019)
- [DIRE for Diffusion-Generated Image Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.09295/) (2023)
- [Multi-attentional Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.02406/) (2021)
- [Detecting Deepfakes with Self-Blended Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.08376/) (2022)
- [Lips Don't Lie: A Generalisable and Robust Approach to Face Forgery Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.07657/) (2020)
- [Watch your Up-Convolution: CNN Based Generative Deep Neural Networks are Failing to Reproduce Spectral Distributions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.01826/) (2020)
- [On the Detection of Digital Face Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.01717/) (2019)
- [Spatial-Phase Shallow Learning: Rethinking Face Forgery Detection in Frequency Domain](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.01856/) (2021)
- [Global Texture Enhancement for Fake Face Detection in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.00133/) (2020)
- [Learning Self-Consistency for Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.09311/) (2020)
- [Self-supervised Learning of Adversarial Example: Towards Good Generalizations for Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.12208/) (2022)
- [Two-branch Recurrent Network for Isolating Deepfakes in Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.03412/) (2020)
- [Exploring Temporal Coherence for More General Video Face Forgery Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.06693/) (2021)
- [Are GAN generated images easy to detect? A critical analysis of the state-of-the-art](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.02617/) (2021)
- [Frequency-aware Discriminative Feature Learning Supervised by Single-Center Loss for Face Forgery Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.09096/) (2021)
- [Protecting Celebrities from DeepFake with Identity Consistency Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.01318/) (2022)
- [FrePGAN: Robust Deepfake Detection Using Frequency-level Perturbations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.03347/) (2022)
- [BiHPF: Bilateral High-Pass Filters for Robust Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.00911/) (2021)
- [AI-Face: A Million-Scale Demographically Annotated AI-Generated Face Dataset and Fairness Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.00783/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Detecting AI-synthetic faces presents a critical challenge: it is hard to capture consistent structural relationships between facial regions across diverse generation techniques. Current methods, which focus on specific artifacts rather than fundamental inconsistencies, often fail when confronted with novel generative models. To address this limitation, we introduce Layer-aware Mask Modulation Vision Transformer (LAMM-ViT), a Vision Transformer designed for robust facial forgery detection. This model integrates distinct Region-Guided Multi-Head Attention (RG-MHA) and Layer-aware Mask Modulation (LAMM) components within each layer. RG-MHA utilizes facial landmarks to create regional attention masks, guiding the model to scrutinize architectural inconsistencies across different facial areas. Crucially, the separate LAMM module dynamically generates layer-specific parameters, including mask weights and gating values, based on network context. These parameters then modulate the behavior of RG-MHA, enabling adaptive adjustment of regional focus across network depths. This architecture facilitates the capture of subtle, hierarchical forgery cues ubiquitous among diverse generation techniques, such as GANs and Diffusion Models. In cross-model generalization tests, LAMM-ViT demonstrates superior performance, achieving 94.09% mean ACC (a +5.45% improvement over SoTA) and 98.62% mean AP (a +3.09% improvement). These results demonstrate LAMM-ViT's exceptional ability to generalize and its potential for reliable deployment against evolving synthetic media threats.