Robust Image Classification with Cognitive-Driven Color Priors

Existing image classification methods based on convolutional neural networks usually use a large number of samples to learn classification features hierarchically, causing the problems of over-fitting and error propagation layer by layer. Thus, they are vulnerable to adversarial samples generated by adding imperceptible disturbances to input samples. To address the above issue, we propose a cognitive-driven color prior model to memorize the color attributes of target samples inspired by the characteristics of human memory. At inference stage, color priors are indexed from the memory and fused with features of convolutional neural networks to achieve robust image classification. The proposed color prior model is cognitive-driven and has no training parameters, thus it has strong generalization and can effectively defend against adversarial samples. In addition, our method directly combines the features of the prior model with the classification probability of the convolutional neural network, without changing the network structure and its parameters of the existing algorithm. It can be combined with other adversarial attack defense methods, such as various preprocessing modules such as PixelDefense or adversarial training methods, to improve the robustness of image classification. Experiments on several benchmark datasets show that the proposed method improves the anti-interference ability of image classification algorithms.