Calibration in One Go: Jointly Learning Accurate and Calibrated Neural Networks
Organizations: Dept. of Computer Science Saarland University, Germany
Abstract
Neural networks (NNs), while highly flexible and versatile, are often poorly calibrated. Post-hoc calibration methods adjust the outputs of an already trained model using a separate calibration dataset and additional calibration parameters. This process adds overhead that requires separate optimization of the calibrator and subsequent model selection. In this paper, we show that standard (post-hoc) calibrators can be trained end-to-end with the backbone via a bilevel Stackelberg formulation. This formulation eliminates the need for a separate calibration set or a dedicated calibration loss by jointly optimizing accuracy and calibration using cross-entropy, introducing only one additional hyperparameter: the calibrator learning rate. Although our framework supports calibrators ranging from temperature and matrix scaling to NN layers, our results show that using the final classification layer itself as the calibrator yields accurate, well-calibrated models with no additional parameters. Our approach outperforms SOTA calibrators with minimal added complexity, while also avoiding the multiplicative overhead of separate calibration components in settings such as multi-task learning.
Figures & tables
| # Extra | End | Calibration | Extra | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Method | Trainable Params. | To End | Data | Burden | |
| Single-Task | Baseline | 0 | ✓ | ✗ | - |
| COG-FC | 0 | ✓ | ✗ | 1 Learning Rate | |
| Label Smoothing | 0 | ✓ | ✗ | 1 Smoothing Level | |
| COG+LS | 0 | ✓ | ✗ | (a) 1 Smoothing Level (b) 1 Learning Rate | |
| Temp. Scaling | 1 | ✗ | ✓ | Calibrator Training |
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | |||||||
| Method | ACC | NLL | Brier | ACC | NLL | Brier | ACC | NLL | Brier |
| Baseline | |||||||||
| COG-FC | |||||||||
| COG+LS | |||||||||
| Label Smoothing | |||||||||
| Temp. Scaling | |||||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||
| Method | AUROC | FPR95 | AUROC | FPR95 | AUROC | FPR95 |
| Baseline | ||||||
| COG-FC | ||||||
| COG+LS | ||||||
| Label Smoothing | ||||||
| Temp. Scaling | ||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | |||||||
| Method | ACC | NLL | Brier | ACC | NLL | Brier | ACC | NLL | Brier |
| Baseline | |||||||||
| COG-FC | |||||||||
| COG+LS | |||||||||
| Label Smoothing | |||||||||
| Temp. Scaling | |||||||||
| Method | ACC | NLL | Brier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline | |||
| COG-FC | |||
| Temp. Scaling | |||
| COG-TS | |||
| Matrix Scaling | |||
| COG-MS |
Appendix figures & tables28 assets
Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.
Appendix
| # Extra | End | Calibration | Extra | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Method | Trainable Params. | To End | Data | Burden | |
| Single-Task | Baseline | 0 | ✓ | ✗ | - |
| COG-FC | 0 | ✓ | ✗ | 1 Learning Rate | |
| Label Smoothing | 0 | ✓ | ✗ | 1 Smoothing Level | |
| COG+LS | 0 | ✓ | ✗ | (a) 1 Smoothing Level (b) 1 Learning Rate | |
| Temp. Scaling | 1 | ✗ | ✓ | Calibrator Training |
| CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | SVHN | CelebA | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Method | |||||||||
| ResNet | COG-FC | 1e-3 | 5e-5 | 1e-3 | 1e-5 | 1e-3 | 1e-5 | 1e-3 | 1e-5 |
| COG-TS | 1e-3 | 1e-4 | 1e-3 | 1e-5 | 1e-3 | 1e-4 | 1e-2 | 5e-5 | |
| COG-MS | 1e-3 | 5e-5 | 5e-4 | 1e-5 | 5e-4 | 1e-5 | - | - | |
| COG-TST | 1e-3 | 5e-5 | 5e-4 | 1e-5 | 5e-4 | 1e-4 | - | - | |
| WRN | COG-FC | 1e-3 | 1e-5 | 1e-2 | 1e-5 | 1e-3 | 5e-5 | - | - |
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Method | ECE-10 | ECE-15 | ECE-100 | ECE-500 | ECE-10 | ECE-15 | ECE-100 | ECE-500 | ECE-10 | ECE-15 | ECE-100 | ECE-500 |
| Baseline | [8] | [8] | [8] | [8] | [8] | [8] | [8] | [8] | [7] | [7] | [7] | [7] |
| COG-FC | [2] | [2] | [2] | [2] | [4] | [4] | [4] | [5] | [2] | [2] | [2] | [2] |
| Temp Scaling | [7] | [7] | [7] | [7] | [5] | [5] | [5] | [4] | [6] | [6] | [6] | [6] |
| COG-TS | [4] | [4] | [4] | [4] | [6] | [6] | [6] | [6] | [3] | [3] | [3] | [3] |
| Matrix Scaling | [1] | [1] | [1] | [1] | [1] | [1] | [1] | [1] | [8] | [8] | [8] | [8] |
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Method | RMSCE-10 | RMSCE-15 | RMSCE-100 | RMSCE-500 | RMSCE-10 | RMSCE-15 | RMSCE-100 | RMSCE-500 | RMSCE-10 | RMSCE-15 | RMSCE-100 | RMSCE-500 |
| Baseline | [8] | [8] | [8] | [8] | [8] | [8] | [8] | [8] | [7] | [7] | [7] | [7] |
| COG-FC | [2] | [2] | [2] | [2] | [4] | [4] | [4] | [4] | [2] | [2] | [2] | [2] |
| Temp Scaling | [7] | [7] | [7] | [7] | [6] | [6] | [7] | [6] | [6] | [6] | [6] | [6] |
| COG-TS | [3] | [4] | [5] | [6] | [5] | [5] | [5] | [5] | [3] | [3] | [3] | [3] |
| Matrix Scaling | [1] | [1] | [1] | [1] | [1] | [1] | [1] | [1] | [8] | [8] | [8] | [8] |
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Method | MCE-10 | MCE-15 | MCE-100 | MCE-500 | MCE-10 | MCE-15 | MCE-100 | MCE-500 | MCE-10 | MCE-15 | MCE-100 | MCE-500 |
| Baseline | [8] | [8] | [6] | [8] | [8] | [7] | [4] | [8] | [7] | [7] | [7] | [7] |
| COG-FC | [3] | [3] | [2] | [2] | [7] | [5] | [6] | [3] | [2] | [2] | [3] | [2] |
| Temp Scaling | [4] | [6] | [5] | [5] | [6] | [4] | [3] | [7] | [6] | [6] | [6] | [4] |
| COG-TS | [7] | [7] | [8] | [7] | [2] | [1] | [1] | [1] | [3] | [3] | [4] | [6] |
| Matrix Scaling | [6] | [5] | [7] | [6] | [1] | [2] | [8] | [5] | [8] | [8] | [8] | [8] |
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
| Method | ACC | NLL | Brier | Rank | ACC | NLL | Brier | Rank | ACC | NLL | Brier | Rank |
| Baseline | 8.67 | 8.00 | 8.33 | |||||||||
| COG-FC | 2.67 | 5.67 | \color[rgb]{0,0.75,0.16}{\mathbf{1.33}} | |||||||||
| COG+LS | 4.67 | 6.00 | 2.00 | |||||||||
| COG-TS | 2.33 | 8.00 | 3.33 | |||||||||
| COG-MS | \color[rgb]{0,0.75,0.16}{\mathbf{1.33}} | 10.33 | 4.67 | |||||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
| Method | ECE-10 | ECE-15 | ECE-100 | ECE-500 | ECE-10 | ECE-15 | ECE-100 | ECE-500 | ECE-10 | ECE-15 | ECE-100 | ECE-500 |
| Baseline | ||||||||||||
| COG-FC | ||||||||||||
| COG+LS | ||||||||||||
| COG-TS | ||||||||||||
| COG-MS | ||||||||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
| Method | RMSCE-10 | RMSCE-15 | RMSCE-100 | RMSCE-500 | RMSCE-10 | RMSCE-15 | RMSCE-100 | RMSCE-500 | RMSCE-10 | RMSCE-15 | RMSCE-100 | RMSCE-500 |
| Baseline | ||||||||||||
| COG-FC | ||||||||||||
| COG+LS | ||||||||||||
| COG-TS | ||||||||||||
| COG-MS | ||||||||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
| Method | MCE-10 | MCE-15 | MCE-100 | MCE-500 | MCE-10 | MCE-15 | MCE-100 | MCE-500 | MCE-10 | MCE-15 | MCE-100 | MCE-500 |
| Baseline | ||||||||||||
| COG-FC | ||||||||||||
| COG+LS | ||||||||||||
| COG-TS | ||||||||||||
| COG-MS | ||||||||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | |||||||
| Method | AUROC | FPR95 | Rank | AUROC | FPR95 | Rank | AUROC | FPR95 | Rank |
| Baseline | 8.00 | 7.00 | 7.00 | ||||||
| COG-FC | 2.00 | 3.00 | 8.00 | ||||||
| COG+LS | 6.50 | 6.00 | 6.50 | ||||||
| COG-TS | 4.50 | 6.00 | 10.50 | ||||||
| COG-MS | \color[rgb]{0,0.75,0.16}{\mathbf{1.00}} | 6.00 | 8.00 | ||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
| Method | ACC | NLL | Brier | Rank | ACC | NLL | Brier | Rank | ACC | NLL | Brier | Rank |
| Baseline | 8.67 | 6.67 | 7.67 | |||||||||
| COG-FC | 6.00 | 9.00 | 4.00 | |||||||||
| COG+LS | 3.00 | 7.33 | 5.67 | |||||||||
| COG-TS | 10.33 | 11.33 | 9.33 | |||||||||
| COG-MS | 6.00 | 10.67 | 6.67 | |||||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
| Method | ECE-10 | ECE-15 | ECE-100 | ECE-500 | ECE-10 | ECE-15 | ECE-100 | ECE-500 | ECE-10 | ECE-15 | ECE-100 | ECE-500 |
| Baseline | ||||||||||||
| COG-FC | ||||||||||||
| COG+LS | ||||||||||||
| COG-TS | ||||||||||||
| COG-MS | ||||||||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
| Method | RMSCE-10 | RMSCE-15 | RMSCE-100 | RMSCE-500 | RMSCE-10 | RMSCE-15 | RMSCE-100 | RMSCE-500 | RMSCE-10 | RMSCE-15 | RMSCE-100 | RMSCE-500 |
| Baseline | ||||||||||||
| COG-FC | ||||||||||||
| COG+LS | ||||||||||||
| COG-TS | ||||||||||||
| COG-MS | ||||||||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
| Method | MCE-10 | MCE-15 | MCE-100 | MCE-500 | MCE-10 | MCE-15 | MCE-100 | MCE-500 | MCE-10 | MCE-15 | MCE-100 | MCE-500 |
| Baseline | ||||||||||||
| COG-FC | ||||||||||||
| COG+LS | ||||||||||||
| COG-TS | ||||||||||||
| COG-MS | ||||||||||||
| Method | ECE-10 | ECE-15 | ECE-100 | ECE-500 | RMSCE-10 | RMSCE-15 | RMSCE-100 | RMSCE-500 | MCE-10 | MCE-15 | MCE-100 | MCE-500 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline | [4] | [4] | [4] | [4] | [3] | [4] | [4] | [3] | [2] | [2] | [2] | [3] |
| COG-FC | [3] | [3] | [3] | [3] | [5] | [5] | [5] | [4] | [6] | [6] | [5] | [5] |
| Temp Scaling | [2] | [2] | [2] | [2] | [2] | [2] | [2] | [2] | [4] | [4] | [1] | [6] |
| COG-TS | [6] | [6] | [6] | [6] | [6] | [6] | [6] | [6] | [1] | [1] | [4] | [2] |
| Matrix Scaling | [1] | [1] | [1] | [1] | [1] | [1] | [1] | [1] | [3] | [3] | [6] | [1] |
| COG-MS | [5] | [5] | [5] | [5] | [4] | [3] | [3] | [5] | [5] | [5] | [3] | [4] |
| CelebA | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Method | ECE-10 | ECE-15 | ECE-100 | ECE-500 | RMSCE-10 | RMSCE-15 | RMSCE-100 | RMSCE-500 | MCE-10 | MCE-15 | MCE-100 | MCE-500 |
| Baseline | ||||||||||||
| COG-FC | ||||||||||||
| Label Smoothing | ||||||||||||
| COG+LS | ||||||||||||
| Temp. Scaling | ||||||||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
| Method | ACC | NLL | Brier | Rank | ACC | NLL | Brier | Rank | ACC | NLL | Brier | Rank |
| Baseline | 9.67 | 7.67 | 7.67 | |||||||||
| COG-FC | 3.00 | 8.00 | 3.00 | |||||||||
| COG+LS | 3.67 | 7.67 | 2.33 | |||||||||
| COG-TS | 2.00 | 9.00 | 5.67 | |||||||||
| COG-MS | \color[rgb]{0,0.75,0.16}{\mathbf{1.33}} | 11.00 | 5.33 | |||||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
| Method | ECE-10 | ECE-15 | ECE-100 | ECE-500 | ECE-10 | ECE-15 | ECE-100 | ECE-500 | ECE-10 | ECE-15 | ECE-100 | ECE-500 |
| Baseline | ||||||||||||
| COG-FC | ||||||||||||
| COG+LS | ||||||||||||
| COG-TS | ||||||||||||
| COG-MS | ||||||||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
| Method | RMSCE-10 | RMSCE-15 | RMSCE-100 | RMSCE-500 | RMSCE-10 | RMSCE-15 | RMSCE-100 | RMSCE-500 | RMSCE-10 | RMSCE-15 | RMSCE-100 | RMSCE-500 |
| Baseline | ||||||||||||
| COG-FC | ||||||||||||
| COG+LS | ||||||||||||
| COG-TS | ||||||||||||
| COG-MS | ||||||||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
| Method | MCE-10 | MCE-15 | MCE-100 | MCE-500 | MCE-10 | MCE-15 | MCE-100 | MCE-500 | MCE-10 | MCE-15 | MCE-100 | MCE-500 |
| Baseline | ||||||||||||
| COG-FC | ||||||||||||
| COG+LS | ||||||||||||
| COG-TS | ||||||||||||
| COG-MS | ||||||||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | |||||||
| Method | AUROC | FPR95 | Rank | AUROC | FPR95 | Rank | AUROC | FPR95 | Rank |
| Baseline | 9.50 | 4.50 | 8.50 | ||||||
| COG-FC | 2.50 | 9.50 | 8.50 | ||||||
| COG+LS | 4.00 | 9.00 | 4.00 | ||||||
| COG-TS | 4.50 | 8.50 | 10.50 | ||||||
| COG-MS | 3.50 | 11.00 | 10.50 | ||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
| Method | ACC | NLL | Brier | Rank | ACC | NLL | Brier | Rank | ACC | NLL | Brier | Rank |
| Baseline | 10.67 | 8.33 | 8.33 | |||||||||
| COG-FC | 4.00 | 9.33 | 4.33 | |||||||||
| COG+LS | \color[rgb]{0,0.75,0.16}{\mathbf{1.00}} | 7.67 | 2.00 | |||||||||
| COG-TS | 9.00 | 11.67 | 8.00 | |||||||||
| COG-MS | 6.00 | 10.67 | 7.33 | |||||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
| Method | ECE-10 | ECE-15 | ECE-100 | ECE-500 | ECE-10 | ECE-15 | ECE-100 | ECE-500 | ECE-10 | ECE-15 | ECE-100 | ECE-500 |
| Baseline | ||||||||||||
| COG-FC | ||||||||||||
| COG+LS | ||||||||||||
| COG-TS | ||||||||||||
| COG-MS | ||||||||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
| Method | RMSCE-10 | RMSCE-15 | RMSCE-100 | RMSCE-500 | RMSCE-10 | RMSCE-15 | RMSCE-100 | RMSCE-500 | RMSCE-10 | RMSCE-15 | RMSCE-100 | RMSCE-500 |
| Baseline | ||||||||||||
| COG-FC | ||||||||||||
| COG+LS | ||||||||||||
| COG-TS | ||||||||||||
| COG-MS | ||||||||||||
| SVHN | CIFAR-10 | CIFAR-100 | ||||||||||
| Method | MCE-10 | MCE-15 | MCE-100 | MCE-500 | MCE-10 | MCE-15 | MCE-100 | MCE-500 | MCE-10 | MCE-15 | MCE-100 | MCE-500 |
| Baseline | ||||||||||||
| COG-FC | ||||||||||||
| COG+LS | ||||||||||||
| COG-TS | ||||||||||||
| COG-MS | ||||||||||||
Model Calibration
Model calibration aligns predicted confidence or model outputs with observed outcomes and measurements to support more reliable decisions.
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