A Deep Neural Network Regularization Measure: The Class-Based Decorrelation Method

In response to the challenge of overfitting, which may lead to a decline in network generalization performance, this paper proposes a new regularization technique, called the class-based decorrelation method (CDM). Specifically, this method views the neurons in a specific hidden layer as base learners, and aims to boost network generalization as well as model accuracy by minimizing the correlation among individual base learners while simultaneously maximizing their class-conditional correlation. Intuitively, CDM not only promotes diversity among the hidden neurons, but also enhances their cohesiveness among them when processing samples from the same class. Comparative experiments conducted on various datasets using deep models demonstrate that CDM effectively reduces overfitting and improves classification performance.