# Phase4DFD: Multi-Domain Phase-Aware Attention for Deepfake Detection

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05861 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.05861/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 27 of its 40 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 9 Jan 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 27 of 27)

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [SGDR: Stochastic Gradient Descent with Warm Restarts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.03983/) (2016)
- [Analyzing and Improving the Image Quality of StyleGAN](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04958/) (2019)
- [CBAM: Convolutional Block Attention Module](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.06521/) (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)
- [Face X-ray for More General Face Forgery Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.13458/) (2019)
- [Multi-attentional Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.02406/) (2021)
- [Detecting Deepfakes with Self-Blended Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.08376/) (2022)
- [Exposing Deep Fakes Using Inconsistent Head Poses](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.00661/) (2018)
- [Detecting and Simulating Artifacts in GAN Fake Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.06515/) (2019)
- [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)
- [The Creation and Detection of Deepfakes: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.11138/) (2020)
- [DeepFakes and Beyond: A Survey of Face Manipulation and Fake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.00179/) (2020)
- [Capsule-Forensics: Using Capsule Networks to Detect Forged Images and Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.11215/) (2018)
- [Fourier Spectrum Discrepancies in Deep Network Generated Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.06465/) (2019)
- [Detecting GAN generated Fake Images using Co-occurrence Matrices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.06836/) (2019)
- [Deepfake Detection by Human Crowds, Machines, and Machine-informed Crowds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.06496/) (2021)
- [FakePolisher: Making DeepFakes More Detection-Evasive by Shallow Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.07533/) (2020)
- [Faster Than Lies: Real-time Deepfake Detection using Binary Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.04932/) (2024)
- [Join the High Accuracy Club on ImageNet with A Binary Neural Network Ticket](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.12933/) (2022)
- [Harnessing Machine Learning for Discerning AI-Generated Synthetic Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.07358/) (2024)

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

- [SSPFormer: Self-Supervised Pretrained Transformer for MRI Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.12747/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recent deepfake detection methods have increasingly explored frequency domain representations to reveal manipulation artifacts that are difficult to detect in the spatial domain. However, most existing approaches rely primarily on spectral magnitude, implicitly under exploring the role of phase information. In this work, we propose Phase4DFD, a phase aware frequency domain deepfake detection framework that explicitly models phase magnitude interactions via a learnable attention mechanism. Our approach augments standard RGB input with Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) magnitude and local binary pattern (LBP) representations to expose subtle synthesis artifacts that remain indistinguishable under spatial analysis alone. Crucially, we introduce an input level phase aware attention module that uses phase discontinuities commonly introduced by synthetic generation to guide the model toward frequency patterns that are most indicative of manipulation before backbone feature extraction. The attended multi domain representation is processed by an efficient BNext M backbone, with optional channel spatial attention applied for semantic feature refinement. Extensive experiments on the CIFAKE and DFFD datasets demonstrate that our proposed model Phase4DFD outperforms state of the art spatial and frequency-based detectors while maintaining low computational overhead. Comprehensive ablation studies further confirm that explicit phase modeling provides complementary and non-redundant information beyond magnitude-only frequency representations.