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Main Authors: Neukirch, Nils, Vielhaben, Johanna, Strodthoff, Nils
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.21032
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author Neukirch, Nils
Vielhaben, Johanna
Strodthoff, Nils
author_facet Neukirch, Nils
Vielhaben, Johanna
Strodthoff, Nils
contents Internal representations are crucial for understanding deep neural networks, such as their properties and reasoning patterns, but remain difficult to interpret. While mapping from feature space to input space aids in interpreting the former, existing approaches often rely on crude approximations. We propose using a conditional diffusion model - a pretrained high-fidelity diffusion model conditioned on spatially resolved feature maps - to learn such a mapping in a probabilistic manner. We demonstrate the feasibility of this approach across various pretrained image classifiers from CNNs to ViTs, showing excellent reconstruction capabilities. Through qualitative comparisons and robustness analysis, we validate our method and showcase possible applications, such as the visualization of concept steering in input space or investigations of the composite nature of the feature space. This approach has broad potential for improving feature space understanding in computer vision models.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_21032
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle FeatInv: Spatially resolved mapping from feature space to input space using conditional diffusion models
Neukirch, Nils
Vielhaben, Johanna
Strodthoff, Nils
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Internal representations are crucial for understanding deep neural networks, such as their properties and reasoning patterns, but remain difficult to interpret. While mapping from feature space to input space aids in interpreting the former, existing approaches often rely on crude approximations. We propose using a conditional diffusion model - a pretrained high-fidelity diffusion model conditioned on spatially resolved feature maps - to learn such a mapping in a probabilistic manner. We demonstrate the feasibility of this approach across various pretrained image classifiers from CNNs to ViTs, showing excellent reconstruction capabilities. Through qualitative comparisons and robustness analysis, we validate our method and showcase possible applications, such as the visualization of concept steering in input space or investigations of the composite nature of the feature space. This approach has broad potential for improving feature space understanding in computer vision models.
title FeatInv: Spatially resolved mapping from feature space to input space using conditional diffusion models
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.21032