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Bayesian neural networks (BNNs) estimate the posterior distribution of model parameters and utilize posterior samples for Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) in prediction. However, despite the crucial role of flatness in the loss landscape in…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-06-18 Sungjun Lim , Jeyoon Yeom , Sooyon Kim , Hoyoon Byun , Jinho Kang , Yohan Jung , Jiyoung Jung , Kyungwoo Song

The ability of overparameterized deep networks to generalize well has been linked to the fact that stochastic gradient descent (SGD) finds solutions that lie in flat, wide minima in the training loss -- minima where the output of the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-06-03 Vaishnavh Nagarajan , J. Zico Kolter

We study the implicit bias of flatness / low (loss) curvature and its effects on generalization in two-layer overparameterized ReLU networks with multivariate inputs -- a problem well motivated by the minima stability and edge-of-stability…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-01-13 Tongtong Liang , Dan Qiao , Yu-Xiang Wang , Rahul Parhi

The volume hypothesis suggests deep learning is effective because it is likely to find flat minima due to their large volumes, and flat minima generalize well. This picture does not explain the role of large datasets in generalization.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-10 Raymond Fan , Bryce Sandlund , Lin Myat Ko

Sharpness of minima is a promising quantity that can correlate with generalization in deep networks and, when optimized during training, can improve generalization. However, standard sharpness is not invariant under reparametrizations of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-06-08 Maksym Andriushchenko , Francesco Croce , Maximilian Müller , Matthias Hein , Nicolas Flammarion

Flatness of the loss curve is conjectured to be connected to the generalization ability of machine learning models, in particular neural networks. While it has been empirically observed that flatness measures consistently correlate strongly…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-05 Henning Petzka , Michael Kamp , Linara Adilova , Cristian Sminchisescu , Mario Boley

With a goal of understanding what drives generalization in deep networks, we consider several recently suggested explanations, including norm-based control, sharpness and robustness. We study how these measures can ensure generalization,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2017-07-07 Behnam Neyshabur , Srinadh Bhojanapalli , David McAllester , Nathan Srebro

Reliable confidence estimation for the predictions is important in many safety-critical applications. However, modern deep neural networks are often overconfident for their incorrect predictions. Recently, many calibration methods have been…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-07 Fei Zhu , Zhen Cheng , Xu-Yao Zhang , Cheng-Lin Liu

Mathematically characterizing the implicit regularization induced by gradient-based optimization is a longstanding pursuit in the theory of deep learning. A widespread hope is that a characterization based on minimization of norms may…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-10-20 Noam Razin , Nadav Cohen

Characterizing the remarkable generalization properties of over-parameterized neural networks remains an open problem. In this paper, we promote a shift of focus towards initialization rather than neural architecture or (stochastic)…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-07-12 Sameera Ramasinghe , Lachlan MacDonald , Moshiur Farazi , Hemanth Saratchandran , Simon Lucey

Recently, flat minima are proven to be effective for improving generalization and sharpness-aware minimization (SAM) achieves state-of-the-art performance. Yet the current definition of flatness discussed in SAM and its follow-ups are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-07-07 Xingxuan Zhang , Renzhe Xu , Han Yu , Hao Zou , Peng Cui

Generalization in deep learning has been the topic of much recent theoretical and empirical research. Here we introduce desiderata for techniques that predict generalization errors for deep learning models in supervised learning. Such…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-12-10 Guillermo Valle-Pérez , Ard A. Louis

We consider the problem of generalization of arbitrarily overparameterized two-layer ReLU Neural Networks with univariate input. Recent work showed that under square loss, flat solutions (motivated by flat / stable minima and Edge of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-02 Dan Qiao , Yu-Xiang Wang

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) generalization is known to be closely related to the flatness of minima, leading to the development of Sharpness-Aware Minimization (SAM) for seeking flatter minima and better generalization. In this paper, we…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-06 Yun Yue , Jiadi Jiang , Zhiling Ye , Ning Gao , Yongchao Liu , Ke Zhang

Model reparametrization, which follows the change-of-variable rule of calculus, is a popular way to improve the training of neural nets. But it can also be problematic since it can induce inconsistencies in, e.g., Hessian-based flatness…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-24 Agustinus Kristiadi , Felix Dangel , Philipp Hennig

The key distinguishing property of a Bayesian approach is marginalization instead of optimization, not the prior, or Bayes rule. Bayesian inference is especially compelling for deep neural networks. (1) Neural networks are typically…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-01-30 Andrew Gordon Wilson

Recently, learning algorithms motivated from sharpness of loss surface as an effective measure of generalization gap have shown state-of-the-art performances. Nevertheless, sharpness defined in a rigid region with a fixed radius, has a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-06-30 Jungmin Kwon , Jeongseop Kim , Hyunseo Park , In Kwon Choi

This paper proposes a theoretical framework to evaluate and compare the performance of stochastic gradient algorithms for distributed learning in relation to their behavior around local minima in nonconvex environments. Previous works have…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-03 Ying Cao , Zhaoxian Wu , Kun Yuan , Ali H. Sayed

The properties of flat minima in the empirical risk landscape of neural networks have been debated for some time. Increasing evidence suggests they possess better generalization capabilities with respect to sharp ones. First, we discuss…

Sharpness-Aware Minimization (SAM) enhances generalization by reducing a Max-Sharpness (MaxS). Despite the practical success, we empirically found that the MAxS behind SAM's generalization enhancements face the "Flatness Indicator Problem"…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2024-09-23 Jiaxin Deng , Junbiao Pang , Baochang Zhang , Qingming Huang