# The Role of Noisy Data in Improving CNN Robustness for Image Classification

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.08043 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.08043/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 18 of its 37 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Jan 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 18 of 18)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [A Simple Framework for Contrastive Learning of Visual Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.05709/) (2020)
- [Explaining and Harnessing Adversarial Examples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6572/) (2014)
- [Towards Deep Learning Models Resistant to Adversarial Attacks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.06083/) (2017)
- [mixup: Beyond Empirical Risk Minimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.09412/) (2017)
- [Benchmarking Neural Network Robustness to Common Corruptions and Perturbations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.12261/) (2019)
- [A Baseline for Detecting Misclassified and Out-of-Distribution Examples in Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02136/) (2016)
- [Improved Regularization of Convolutional Neural Networks with Cutout](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.04552/) (2017)
- [Do ImageNet Classifiers Generalize to ImageNet?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.10811/) (2019)
- [Revisiting Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data in Deep Learning Era](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.02968/) (2017)
- [Measuring Robustness to Natural Distribution Shifts in Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.00644/) (2020)
- [Pervasive Label Errors in Test Sets Destabilize Machine Learning Benchmarks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14749/) (2021)
- [Adversarial Examples Improve Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.09665/) (2019)
- [Generalisation in humans and deep neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.08750/) (2018)
- [Understanding How Image Quality Affects Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1604.04004/) (2016)
- [Adversarial Examples Are a Natural Consequence of Test Error in Noise](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.10513/) (2019)
- [Improving Robustness Without Sacrificing Accuracy with Patch Gaussian Augmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.02611/) (2019)
- [Analysis of classifiers' robustness to adversarial perturbations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.02590/) (2015)

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

- [Image Quality Dependent Degradation for AI Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.25736/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Data quality plays a central role in the performance and robustness of convolutional neural networks (CNNs) for image classification. While high-quality data is often preferred for training, real-world inputs are frequently affected by noise and other distortions. This paper investigates the effect of deliberately introducing controlled noise into the training data to improve model robustness. Using the CIFAR-10 dataset, we evaluate the impact of three common corruptions, namely Gaussian noise, Salt-and-Pepper noise, and Gaussian blur at varying intensities and training set pollution levels. Experiments using a Resnet-18 model reveal that incorporating just 10% noisy data during training is sufficient to significantly reduce test loss and enhance accuracy under fully corrupted test conditions, with minimal impact on clean-data performance. These findings suggest that strategic exposure to noise can act as a simple yet effective regularizer, offering a practical trade-off between traditional data cleanliness and real-world resilience.