DuFeNet: Improve the Accuracy and Increase Shape Bias of Neural Network Models

In image classification field, existing work tends to modify the network structure to obtain higher accuracy or faster speed. However, some studies have found that the neural network usually has texture bias effect, which means that the neural network is more sensitive to the texture information than the shape information. Based on such phenomenon, we propose a new way to improve network performance by making full use of gradient information. The dual features network (DuFeNet) is proposed in this paper. In DuFeNet, one sub-network is used to learn the information of gradient features, and the other is a traditional neural network with texture bias. The structure of DuFeNet is easy to implement in the original neural network structure. The experimental results clearly show that DuFeNet can achieve better accuracy in image classification and detection. It can increase the shape bias of the network adapted to human visual perception. Besides, DuFeNet can be used without modifying the structure of the original network at lower additional parameters cost.