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Scattering-based hybrid network for facial attribute classification

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Abstract

Face attribute classification (FAC) is a high-profile problem in biometric verification and face retrieval. Although recent research has been devoted to extracting more delicate image attribute features and exploiting the inter-attribute correlations, significant challenges still remain. Wavelet scattering transform (WST) is a promising non-learned feature extractor. It has been shown to yield more discriminative representations and outperforms the learned representations in certain tasks. Applied to the image classification task, WST can enhance subtle image texture information and create local deformation stability. This paper designs a scattering-based hybrid block, to incorporate frequency-domain (WST) and image-domain features in a channel attention manner (Squeeze-and-Excitation, SE), termed WS-SE block. Compared with CNN, WS-SE achieves a more efficient FAC performance and compensates for the model sensitivity of the small-scale affine transform. In addition, to further exploit the relationships among the attribute labels, we propose a learning strategy from a causal view. The cause attributes defined using the causality-related information can be utilized to infer the effect attributes with a high confidence level. Ablative analysis experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our model, and our hybrid model obtains state-of-the-art results in two public datasets.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Project of China (Grant No. 2018AAA0100802), Opening Foundation of National Engineering Laboratory for Intelligent Video Analysis and Application, and Experimental Center of Artificial Intelligence of Beijing Normal University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Artificial Intelligence, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Na Liu, Fan Zhang, Liang Chang & Fuqing Duan

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  1. Na Liu
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  2. Fan Zhang
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  4. Fuqing Duan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fuqing Duan.

Additional information

Na Liu received the BS degree from Xidian University, China in 2016. She is currently pursuing the PhD degree in Beijing Normal University, China. Her research interests include image processing, face Attribute Estimation, and deep learning.

Fan Zhang received the BE degree from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China in 2016. She is currently a PhD candidate in Beijing Normal University, China. Her research interests include image processing and deep learning.

Liang Chang received the bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Wuhan University, China and the PhD degree from the Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China. She is currently an associate professor with the School of Artificial Intelligence, Beijing Normal University, China. Her research interests include computer vision and machine learning.

Fuqing Duan received the BS and MS degrees in mathematics from Northwest University, China in 1995 and 1998, respectively, and the PhD degree in pattern recognition from the National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition, China in 2006. He is currently an Professor with the School of Artificial Intelligence, Beijing Normal University, China. His current research interests include 3D reconstruction, skull identification, and machine learning and applications. He has authored more than 80 conference and journal articles on related topics.

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Liu, N., Zhang, F., Chang, L. et al. Scattering-based hybrid network for facial attribute classification. Front. Comput. Sci. 18, 183313 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11704-023-2570-6

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