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Main Authors: Ni, Jiani, Zhao, He, Yang, Yibo, Guo, Dandan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.09116
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author Ni, Jiani
Zhao, He
Yang, Yibo
Guo, Dandan
author_facet Ni, Jiani
Zhao, He
Yang, Yibo
Guo, Dandan
contents In recent years, deep neural networks (DNNs) have shown competitive results in many fields. Despite this success, they often suffer from poor calibration, especially in safety-critical scenarios such as autonomous driving and healthcare, where unreliable confidence estimates can lead to serious consequences. Recent studies have focused on improving calibration by modifying the classifier, yet such efforts remain limited. Moreover, most existing approaches overlook calibration errors caused by underconfidence, which can be equally detrimental. To address these challenges, we propose MaC-Cal, a novel mask-based classifier calibration method that leverages stochastic sparsity to enhance the alignment between confidence and accuracy. MaC-Cal adopts a two-stage training scheme with adaptive sparsity, dynamically adjusting mask retention rates based on the deviation between confidence and accuracy. Extensive experiments show that MaC-Cal achieves superior calibration performance and robustness under data corruption, offering a practical and effective solution for reliable confidence estimation in DNNs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_09116
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Deep Neural Network Calibration by Reducing Classifier Shift with Stochastic Masking
Ni, Jiani
Zhao, He
Yang, Yibo
Guo, Dandan
Machine Learning
In recent years, deep neural networks (DNNs) have shown competitive results in many fields. Despite this success, they often suffer from poor calibration, especially in safety-critical scenarios such as autonomous driving and healthcare, where unreliable confidence estimates can lead to serious consequences. Recent studies have focused on improving calibration by modifying the classifier, yet such efforts remain limited. Moreover, most existing approaches overlook calibration errors caused by underconfidence, which can be equally detrimental. To address these challenges, we propose MaC-Cal, a novel mask-based classifier calibration method that leverages stochastic sparsity to enhance the alignment between confidence and accuracy. MaC-Cal adopts a two-stage training scheme with adaptive sparsity, dynamically adjusting mask retention rates based on the deviation between confidence and accuracy. Extensive experiments show that MaC-Cal achieves superior calibration performance and robustness under data corruption, offering a practical and effective solution for reliable confidence estimation in DNNs.
title Deep Neural Network Calibration by Reducing Classifier Shift with Stochastic Masking
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.09116