# WaveScat: Wavelet Scattering Front-Ends with Self-Supervised Features for Speech Deepfake Detection

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.02980 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.02980/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 21 of its 39 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 3 Feb 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 21 of 21)

- [A Unified Approach to Interpreting Model Predictions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.07874/) (2017)
- [HuBERT: Self-Supervised Speech Representation Learning by Masked Prediction of Hidden Units](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.07447/) (2021)
- [XLS-R: Self-supervised Cross-lingual Speech Representation Learning at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.09296/) (2021)
- [Scaling Speech Technology to 1,000+ Languages](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.13516/) (2023)
- [Does Audio Deepfake Detection Generalize?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.16263/) (2022)
- [Kymatio: Scattering Transforms in Python](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.11214/) (2018)
- [Deep Scattering Spectrum](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1304.6763/) (2013)
- [A Mathematical Theory of Deep Convolutional Neural Networks for Feature Extraction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.06293/) (2015)
- [Investigating self-supervised front ends for speech spoofing countermeasures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.07725/) (2021)
- [Deepfake-Eval-2024: A Multi-Modal In-the-Wild Benchmark of Deepfakes Circulated in 2024](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.02857/) (2025)
- [Audio Deepfake Detection with Self-Supervised WavLM and Multi-Fusion Attentive Classifier](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.08089/) (2023)
- [ASVspoof 5: Design, Collection and Validation of Resources for Spoofing, Deepfake, and Adversarial Attack Detection Using Crowdsourced Speech](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.08857/) (2025)
- [SpoofCeleb: Speech Deepfake Detection and SASV In The Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.17285/) (2024)
- [ALLM4ADD: Unlocking the Capabilities of Audio Large Language Models for Audio Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.11079/) (2025)
- [Prompt Tuning for Audio Deepfake Detection: Computationally Efficient Test-time Domain Adaptation with Limited Target Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.09869/) (2024)
- [Detect All-Type Deepfake Audio: Wavelet Prompt Tuning for Enhanced Auditory Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.06753/) (2025)
- [Multilingual Source Tracing of Speech Deepfakes: A First Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.04143/) (2025)
- [Fake-Mamba: Real-Time Speech Deepfake Detection Using Bidirectional Mamba as Self-Attention's Alternative](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.09294/) (2025)
- [WaveSP-Net: Learnable Wavelet-Domain Sparse Prompt Tuning for Speech Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.05305/) (2025)
- [WhaleNet: a Novel Deep Learning Architecture for Marine Mammals Vocalizations on Watkins Marine Mammal Sound Database](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.17775/) (2024)
- [Audio Deepfake Detection at the First Greeting: "Hi!"](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.19573/) (2026)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Disentangling Speaker Traits for Deepfake Source Verification via Chebyshev Polynomial and Riemannian Metric Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.21875/) (2026)
- [HKJudge: A Legal Discourse-Annotated Corpus for Interpreting What Courts Find, How They Reason, and What They Rule](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.06679/) (2026)
- [WST-Graph: Topology-Preserving Wavelet Scattering Front-End for Speech Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.29372/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Existing front-ends for speech deepfake detection are primarily categorized into two types. Hand-crafted filterbank features are transparent but limited in capturing higher-level information. SSL features, in turn, lack interpretability and may overlook fine-grained spectral anomalies. We propose WaveScat, a novel family of feature extractors that combines the best of both worlds via the wavelet scattering transform (WST), which cascades wavelet convolutions with modulus nonlinearities to produce deformation-stable, multi-scale features. Experiments on the recent Deepfake-Eval-2024 benchmark, together with cross-dataset evaluations on SpoofCeleb, In-the-Wild, and ASVspoof 5, show that WaveScat outperforms existing front-ends by a wide margin. Our analysis reveals that a small averaging scale combined with high-frequency and directional resolutions is critical for capturing subtle artifacts. This underscores the value of stable and translation-invariant features for speech deepfake detection. The code and supplementary materials are available at https://github.com/xxuan-acoustics/WaveScat.