Abstract:Lifelong (continual) anomaly detection systems must learn a sequence of tasks without forgetting how to recognize anomaly types seen earlier -- a property known as backward transfer. A common way to try to improve backward transfer is to reshape a model's internal representation around learnable concept centroids, typically coupled with a new way of scoring anomalies based on distance to those centroids. Because these two design choices are usually introduced together, it is unclear which one is actually responsible for any performance gain. In this paper, we unbundle the two mechanisms within a VAE-based lifelong anomaly detector and study them separately. We find that used purely as a training-time regularizer -- while leaving anomaly scoring unchanged -- latent cluster separation can improve detection quality and backward transfer, though whether it outperforms the alternative scoring approach depends on the dataset's underlying representation. Switching to distance-based scoring is instead where most of the instability commonly associated with this class of method actually originates; we identify and explain the underlying mechanism. This benefit depends on the dataset's underlying representation, and we report this as practical guidance for choosing between the two design choices, rather than as a list of caveats. Submission history Access Paper: View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source Additional Features Audio Summary Current browse context: References & Citations Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Bookmark Institution arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.
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Latent Cluster Separation as a Regularizer for Lifelong Anomaly Detection
arXiv:2611.03652v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Lifelong (continual) anomaly detection systems must learn a sequence of tasks without forgetting how to recognize anomaly types seen earlier -- a property known as backward transfer. A common way to try to improve backward transfer is to reshape a model's internal representation around learnable concept centroids, typically coupled with a new way of scoring anomalies based on distance to those centroids. Because these two design choices are usually introduced together, it is unclear which one is actually responsible for any performance gain. In this paper, we unbundle the two mechanisms within a VAE-based lifelong anomaly detector and study them separately. We find that used purely as a training-time regularizer -- while leaving anomaly scoring unchanged -- latent cluster separation can improve detection quality and backward transfer, though whether it outperforms the alternative scoring approach depends on the dataset's underlying representation. Switching to distance-based scoring is instead where most of the instability commonly associated with this class of method actually originates; we identify and explain the underlying mechanism. This benefit depends on the dataset's underlying representation, and we report this as practical guidance for choosing between the two design choices, rather than as a list of caveats.
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