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Main Authors: Pan, Weiran, Wei, Wei, Zhu, Feida, Deng, Yong
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.17474
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author Pan, Weiran
Wei, Wei
Zhu, Feida
Deng, Yong
author_facet Pan, Weiran
Wei, Wei
Zhu, Feida
Deng, Yong
contents We propose a novel sample selection method for image classification in the presence of noisy labels. Existing methods typically consider small-loss samples as correctly labeled. However, some correctly labeled samples are inherently difficult for the model to learn and can exhibit high loss similar to mislabeled samples in the early stages of training. Consequently, setting a threshold on per-sample loss to select correct labels results in a trade-off between precision and recall in sample selection: a lower threshold may miss many correctly labeled hard-to-learn samples (low recall), while a higher threshold may include many mislabeled samples (low precision). To address this issue, our goal is to accurately distinguish correctly labeled yet hard-to-learn samples from mislabeled ones, thus alleviating the trade-off dilemma. We achieve this by considering the trends in model prediction confidence rather than relying solely on loss values. Empirical observations show that only for correctly labeled samples, the model's prediction confidence for the annotated labels typically increases faster than for any other classes. Based on this insight, we propose tracking the confidence gaps between the annotated labels and other classes during training and evaluating their trends using the Mann-Kendall Test. A sample is considered potentially correctly labeled if all its confidence gaps tend to increase. Our method functions as a plug-and-play component that can be seamlessly integrated into existing sample selection techniques. Experiments on several standard benchmarks and real-world datasets demonstrate that our method enhances the performance of existing methods for learning with noisy labels.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_17474
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Enhanced Sample Selection with Confidence Tracking: Identifying Correctly Labeled yet Hard-to-Learn Samples in Noisy Data
Pan, Weiran
Wei, Wei
Zhu, Feida
Deng, Yong
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
We propose a novel sample selection method for image classification in the presence of noisy labels. Existing methods typically consider small-loss samples as correctly labeled. However, some correctly labeled samples are inherently difficult for the model to learn and can exhibit high loss similar to mislabeled samples in the early stages of training. Consequently, setting a threshold on per-sample loss to select correct labels results in a trade-off between precision and recall in sample selection: a lower threshold may miss many correctly labeled hard-to-learn samples (low recall), while a higher threshold may include many mislabeled samples (low precision). To address this issue, our goal is to accurately distinguish correctly labeled yet hard-to-learn samples from mislabeled ones, thus alleviating the trade-off dilemma. We achieve this by considering the trends in model prediction confidence rather than relying solely on loss values. Empirical observations show that only for correctly labeled samples, the model's prediction confidence for the annotated labels typically increases faster than for any other classes. Based on this insight, we propose tracking the confidence gaps between the annotated labels and other classes during training and evaluating their trends using the Mann-Kendall Test. A sample is considered potentially correctly labeled if all its confidence gaps tend to increase. Our method functions as a plug-and-play component that can be seamlessly integrated into existing sample selection techniques. Experiments on several standard benchmarks and real-world datasets demonstrate that our method enhances the performance of existing methods for learning with noisy labels.
title Enhanced Sample Selection with Confidence Tracking: Identifying Correctly Labeled yet Hard-to-Learn Samples in Noisy Data
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.17474