arXiv:2607.18162cs.LG2026-07

温度校准会扭曲贝叶斯误差代理值,可精确预测其变化范围。

The Calibration Channel Determines the Bayes-Error Proxy: An Exact Law for Temperature-Induced Distortion

论文配图:The Calibration Channel Determines the Bayes-Error Proxy: An Exact Law for Temperature-Induced Distortion
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 通过数学推导揭示温度缩放如何改变误差代理值,与模型无关。
  • 相同分类器在不同温度下误差代理值可相差56至980倍。
  • 提出闭式公式精准复现代理值随温度变化曲线,适合研究概率校准者。

Ishida等提出的软标签贝叶斯误差估计器β(z) = E[min(z, 1-z)]可直接从概率标签估计二分类任务的不可约误差。Ushio等发现,当概率非真实后验时该估计器易失真,即使校准良好的软标签也会导致显著偏差,建议使用保序校准作为一致修正。本文补充该研究,精确刻画最常用的后处理校准方法——温度缩放——对代理值的扭曲效应。证明了一个模型无关的恒等式,将温度缩放后的代理值还原为分类器的决策边界分布,由此得出:(i) 代理值随温度严格单调变化;(ii) 温度轴与开区间(0, 1/2)之间存在连续双射关系,意味着固定分类器(固定判别结果和0-1误差)可报告任意代理值。在对数服从高斯假设下,进一步推导出代理值-温度曲线的两参数闭式表达。在CIFAR-10、Fashion-MNIST和SVHN上共八个二分类任务中,代理值在恒定测试误差下变化达56至980倍,闭式模型拟合误差小于0.018,且最小期望校准误差对应的校准温度并不对应任何稳定代理值。结果提供了对校准驱动扭曲的精确预测机制,强化了实践建议:代理值的意义必须结合产生其概率的机制。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

The soft-label Bayes-error estimator beta(z) = E[min(z, 1-z)] of Ishida et al. estimates the irreducible error of a binary task directly from probability-valued labels. Recent work by Ushio et al. showed that this estimator is fragile when the probabilities are not the true posterior: even perfectly calibrated soft labels can yield a substantially inaccurate estimate, and they propose isotonic calibration as a consistent remedy. We complement that line of work by characterizing exactly how the most widely used post-hoc calibration map -- temperature scaling -- distorts the proxy. We prove an exact, model-free identity reducing the temperature-scaled proxy to the classifier's margin distribution, from which we obtain (i) strict monotonicity in the temperature and (ii) a continuous bijection from the temperature axis onto the open interval (0, 1/2), so that a fixed classifier -- with fixed decisions and fixed 0-1 error -- can be made to report any proxy value whatsoever. Under a Gaussian model of the logits we further derive a two-parameter closed form for the entire proxy-versus-temperature curve. Across CIFAR-10, Fashion-MNIST, and SVHN (eight binary tasks), the proxy varies by 56x to 980x at constant test error, the closed form reproduces the empirical curve to within 0.018, and the calibration temperature that minimizes the expected calibration error does not coincide with any stable proxy value. Our results give a precise, predictive account of the distortion whose existence motivates calibration-based remedies, and they reinforce the practical recommendation that a proxy value is meaningful only together with the mechanism that produced its probabilities.

校准误差估计温度缩放概率校准

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