# Leveraging Learning Bias for Noisy Anomaly Detection

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.07441 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.07441/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 15 of its 18 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Aug 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 15 of 15)

- [Towards Total Recall in Industrial Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.08265/) (2021)
- [PaDiM: a Patch Distribution Modeling Framework for Anomaly Detection and Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.08785/) (2020)
- [Anomaly Detection via Reverse Distillation from One-Class Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.10703/) (2022)
- [CFLOW-AD: Real-Time Unsupervised Anomaly Detection with Localization via Conditional Normalizing Flows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.12571/) (2021)
- [A Unified Model for Multi-class Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.03687/) (2022)
- [SimpleNet: A Simple Network for Image Anomaly Detection and Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.15140/) (2023)
- [DeSTSeg: Segmentation Guided Denoising Student-Teacher for Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.11317/) (2022)
- [Real-IAD: A Real-World Multi-View Dataset for Benchmarking Versatile Industrial Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.12580/) (2024)
- [Dinomaly: The Less Is More Philosophy in Multi-Class Unsupervised Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14325/) (2024)
- [Segment Any Anomaly without Training via Hybrid Prompt Regularization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.10724/) (2023)
- [SoftPatch: Unsupervised Anomaly Detection with Noisy Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14233/) (2024)
- [Exploring Intrinsic Normal Prototypes within a Single Image for Universal Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.02424/) (2025)
- [Boosting Global-Local Feature Matching via Anomaly Synthesis for Multi-Class Point Cloud Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.07375/) (2025)
- [FUN-AD: Fully Unsupervised Learning for Anomaly Detection with Noisy Training Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.16110/) (2024)
- [A Comprehensive Survey for Real-World Industrial Defect Detection: Challenges, Approaches, and Prospects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.13378/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [What Memory Composition Does Not Tell Us About Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.23295/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This paper addresses the challenge of fully unsupervised image anomaly detection (FUIAD), where training data may contain unlabeled anomalies. Conventional methods assume anomaly-free training data, but real-world contamination leads models to absorb anomalies as normal, degrading detection performance. To mitigate this, we propose a two-stage framework that systematically exploits inherent learning bias in models. The learning bias stems from: (1) the statistical dominance of normal samples, driving models to prioritize learning stable normal patterns over sparse anomalies, and (2) feature-space divergence, where normal data exhibit high intra-class consistency while anomalies display high diversity, leading to unstable model responses. Leveraging the learning bias, stage 1 partitions the training set into subsets, trains sub-models, and aggregates cross-model anomaly scores to filter a purified dataset. Stage 2 trains the final detector on this dataset. Experiments on the Real-IAD benchmark demonstrate superior anomaly detection and localization performance under different noise conditions. Ablation studies further validate the framework's contamination resilience, emphasizing the critical role of learning bias exploitation. The model-agnostic design ensures compatibility with diverse unsupervised backbones, offering a practical solution for real-world scenarios with imperfect training data. Code is available at https://github.com/hustzhangyuxin/LLBNAD.
