NPC: Neuron Path Coverage via Characterizing Decision Logic of Deep Neural Networks
Deep learning has recently been widely applied to many applications across different domains, e.g., image classification and audio recognition. However, the quality of Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) still raises concerns in the practical operational environment, which calls for systematic testing, especially in safety-critical scenarios. Inspired by software testing, a number of structural coverage criteria are designed and proposed to measure the test adequacy of DNNs. However, due to the blackbox nature of DNN, the existing structural coverage criteria are difficult to interpret, making it hard to understand the underlying principles of these criteria. The relationship between the structural coverage and the decision logic of DNNs is unknown. Moreover, recent studies have further revealed the non-existence of correlation between the structural coverage and DNN defect detection, which further posts concerns on what a suitable DNN testing criterion should be. In this paper, we propose the interpretable coverage criteria through constructing the decision structure of a DNN. Mirroring the control flow graph of the traditional program, we first extract a decision graph from a DNN based on its interpretation, where a path of the decision graph represents a decision logic of the DNN. Based on the control flow and data flow of the decision graph, we propose two variants of path coverage to measure the adequacy of the test cases in exercising the decision logic. The higher the path coverage, the more diverse decision logic the DNN is expected to be explored. Our large-scale evaluation results demonstrate that: the path in the decision graph is effective in characterizing the decision of the DNN, and the proposed coverage criteria are also sensitive with errors including natural errors and adversarial examples, and strongly correlated with the output impartiality.
Code (0)
등록된 구현이 없습니다.
Tasks
Defect DetectionDNN Testingimage-classificationImage Classificationsoftware testingSimilar Papers 제목 키워드 기반
An Overview of Structural Coverage Metrics for Testing Neural Networks
Deep neural network (DNN) models, including those used in safety-critical domains, need to be thoroughly tested to ensure that they can reliably perform well in different scenarios. In this article, we provide an overvie…
DNN TestingAutomatically Finding Rule-Based Neurons in OthelloGPT
OthelloGPT, a transformer trained to predict valid moves in Othello, provides an ideal testbed for interpretability research. The model is complex enough to exhibit rich computational patterns, yet grounded in rule-based…
Possible Mechanisms for Neural Reconfigurability and their Implications
The paper introduces a biologically and evolutionarily plausible neural architecture that allows a single group of neurons, or an entire cortical pathway, to be dynamically reconfigured to perform multiple, potentially v…
ElasticPath2Path: Automated morphological classification of neurons by elastic path matching
In the study of neurons, morphology influences function. The complexity in the structure of neurons poses a challenge in the identification and analysis of similar and dissimilar neuronal cells. Existing methodologies ca…
ClassificationBarcodes distinguish morphology of neuronal tauopathy
The geometry of neurons is known to be important for their functions. Hence, neurons are often classified by their morphology. Two recent methods, persistent homology and the topological morphology descriptor, assign a m…