Attention IoU: Examining Biases in CelebA using Attention Maps
Authors: name: Aaron Serianni; name: Tyler Zhu; name: Olga Russakovsky; name: Vikram V. Ramaswamy
Published: 2025-03-25 17:11:39

Abstract: Computer vision models have been shown to exhibit and amplify biases across a
wide array of datasets and tasks. Existing methods for quantifying bias in
classification models primarily focus on dataset distribution and model
performance on subgroups, overlooking the internal workings of a model. We
introduce the Attention-IoU (Attention Intersection over Union) metric and
related scores, which use attention maps to reveal biases within a model's
internal representations and identify image features potentially causing the
biases. First, we validate Attention-IoU on the synthetic Waterbirds dataset,
showing that the metric accurately measures model bias. We then analyze the
CelebA dataset, finding that Attention-IoU uncovers correlations beyond
accuracy disparities. Through an investigation of individual attributes through
the protected attribute of Male, we examine the distinct ways biases are
represented in CelebA. Lastly, by subsampling the training set to change
attribute correlations, we demonstrate that Attention-IoU reveals potential
confounding variables not present in dataset labels.