# A Toolkit for Detecting Spurious Correlations in Speech Datasets

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.26676 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.26676/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 12 of its 22 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 Apr 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [Robust Speech Recognition via Large-Scale Weak Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04356/) (2022)
- [wav2vec 2.0: A Framework for Self-Supervised Learning of Speech Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11477/) (2020)
- [Shortcut Learning in Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.07780/) (2020)
- [Distributionally Robust Neural Networks for Group Shifts: On the Importance of Regularization for Worst-Case Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.08731/) (2019)
- [Powerset multi-class cross entropy loss for neural speaker diarization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.13025/) (2023)
- [Detecting cognitive decline using speech only: The ADReSSo Challenge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.09356/) (2021)
- [DeepFilterNet: A Low Complexity Speech Enhancement Framework for Full-Band Audio based on Deep Filtering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.05588/) (2021)
- [TorchAudio 2.1: Advancing speech recognition, self-supervised learning, and audio processing components for PyTorch](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.17864/) (2023)
- [Navigating Shortcuts, Spurious Correlations, and Confounders: From Origins via Detection to Mitigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.05152/) (2024)
- [Clever Hans Effect Found in Automatic Detection of Alzheimer's Disease through Speech](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.07410/) (2024)
- [Shortcut Learning in Binary Classifier Black Boxes: Applications to Voice Anti-Spoofing and Biometrics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.17782/) (2026)
- [Infusing Acoustic Pause Context into Text-Based Dementia Assessment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.15188/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We introduce a toolkit for uncovering spurious correlations between recording characteristics and target class in speech datasets. Spurious correlations may arise due to heterogeneous recording conditions, a common scenario for health-related datasets. When present both in the training and test data, these correlations result in an overestimation of the system performance -- a dangerous situation, specially in high-stakes application where systems are required to satisfy minimum performance requirements. Our toolkit implements a diagnostic method based on the detection of the target class using only the non-speech regions in the audio. Better than chance performance at this task indicates that information about the target class can be extracted from the non-speech regions, flagging the presence of spurious correlations. The toolkit is publicly available for research use.