arXiv:2606.03214cs.AIcs.CV2026-06中稿 · publication at the…

研究皮肤病变分类中性别与年龄偏见,发现数据不平衡是主因,需针对性干预。

Effect of Demographic Bias on Skin Lesion Classification

论文配图:Effect of Demographic Bias on Skin Lesion Classification
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 用线性规划生成可控人口特征数据集,测试三种学习策略的偏见影响。
  • 男性训练数据提升男性子群体性能,女性主导数据下仍有效;年龄越小表现越好。
  • 对抗与强化学习在女性为主数据中减偏显著,但在男性为主数据中效果有限。

本研究评估基于ResNet的卷积模型在皮肤病变分类中的表现,重点关注训练数据中患者性别和年龄的群体偏见影响。采用线性规划生成具有受控人口特征的数据集,系统分析偏见效应。比较三种学习策略:单任务模型、增强型多任务模型与对抗学习方案。性别分析显示,按性别划分训练数据可优化模型性能;即使在女性为主的训练集中加入男性患者,仍能提升男性子群体表现。增强与对抗学习在平衡及女性主导数据集中缩小或消除偏见差距,但在男性主导设置下效果较差,模型对男性仍优于女性。年龄分析表明,三种模型基线表现相近,但性能随年龄增长下降,年轻群体始终最优。尽管平衡训练对最年轻组效果最佳,老人群体性能仍下降。性别偏见主要源于数据不平衡,而年龄偏见则持续偏向年轻群体,无论分布如何。两种机制需分别应对。跨数据集验证在两个外部数据集上显示,领域偏移显著影响性能与偏见模式。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

In this study, we evaluate the performance of skin lesion classification using ResNet-based convolutional models, focusing on the impact of demographic bias in training data, particularly variations in patient sex and age. We use linear programming to generate datasets with controlled demographic characteristics, allowing systematic investigation of bias effects. Three learning strategies are evaluated: a single-task model, a reinforcing multi-task model, and an adversarial learning scheme. Our sex-based analysis indicates that sex-specific training datasets optimise model performance. Notably, including male patients in the training data improved performance for the male subgroup, even in female-majority cases. Reinforcing and adversarial learning schemes narrowed or eliminated bias gaps in balanced and female-majority datasets. However, these strategies proved less effective in male-majority settings, where models continued to perform better for males than females. The two learning schemes showed marginal bias reduction compared to the baseline model in predominantly male patient populations. Age-based analysis demonstrates comparable baseline performance across the three model approaches, with performance declining across age categories. Younger groups consistently achieve the highest performance, regardless of training data distribution. Although balanced training yields optimal results for the youngest age category, performance decreases in older categories. We find that sex biases arise mainly from data imbalances, while age biases consistently favour younger groups regardless of distribution. These distinct mechanisms require targeted mitigation strategies. Additionally, cross-dataset validation on two external datasets revealed that domain shifts notably affect performance and patterns of demographic bias.

皮肤病变偏见分析公平性多任务学习

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