Papers › ProtoAttend: Attention-Based Prototypical Learning

ProtoAttend: Attention-Based Prototypical Learning

17 Feb 2019arXiv:1902.06292archive 2025-07-28

Sercan O. Arik, Tomas Pfister

We propose a novel inherently interpretable machine learning method that bases decisions on few relevant examples that we call prototypes. Our method, ProtoAttend, can be integrated into a wide range of neural network architectures including pre-trained models. It utilizes an attention mechanism that relates the encoded representations to samples in order to determine prototypes. The resulting model outperforms state of the art in three high impact problems without sacrificing accuracy of the original model: (1) it enables high-quality interpretability that outputs samples most relevant to the decision-making (i.e. a sample-based interpretability method); (2) it achieves state of the art confidence estimation by quantifying the mismatch across prototype labels; and (3) it obtains state of the art in distribution mismatch detection. All this can be achieved with minimal additional test time and a practically viable training time computational cost.

PaperPDFConference PDFCodeCode Syntology ran

In Syntology Open this paper in Syntology's Atlas, the map of the papers in Syntology's graph and their citations.

For agents, Syntology's MCP tool lists every function and class Syntology harvested from this paper and whether it ran (how to connect): get_harvested_code_for_paper(arxiv_id="1902.06292")

Code

Syntology Ran 3 of 4 code samples harvested from 3 repositories linked to this paper; 1 has no recorded run. Of those that ran: 2 ran · our draft was wrong; 1 ran · fixture could not drive it.

By repository: community (archive-listed): 4 samples from 3 repositories, 3 ran. The run record, sample by sample. “Ran” means executed on a synthesized input, not that the code is correct or reproduces the paper.

ZJUHSY/2020- mentioned on GitHubpytorch report
aced125/sparsemax mentioned on GitHubpytorchMIT report
google-research/google-research mentioned on GitHubtf report
si-qi/protoattend mentioned on GitHubtfApache-2.0 report

Repository list and official/mentioned flags are the archive's, frozen 2025-07-28. Reachability, where shown, is from one Syntology probe window (2026-09-16 to 2026-09-18); repositories not probed show nothing. GitHub stars are not tracked.

Code Syntology ran Syntology

4 samples harvested; 3 ran; 0 honoured the contract we drafted; 1 has no recorded run. Read from Syntology's graph 2026-09-24; that is when this build read the record, not when the samples ran.

2ran · our draft was wrong
1ran · fixture could not drive it
1unverified

Licence: 1 of the 4 samples is pointer only, meaning Syntology does not serve that copy's text. This page shows no code text for any sample; each one links to its file in the repository.

Harvested from 3 repositories linked to this paper, official or community; each sample names its own and says which. “Ran” means the sample executed on a synthesized input. It does not mean the output is correct, and nothing here reproduces the paper's results. “Honoured” and “violated” refer to a contract Syntology drafted from the code itself; “our draft was wrong” and “fixture could not drive it” are failures of Syntology's instrument, not of the code.

Each sample ends with its code_sha256, Syntology's identity for that exact code. An agent fetches the stored sample with Syntology's MCP tool get_code(code_sha256="…") (how to connect); click an identity to copy that call.

Repository labels, per sample. official repository: The archive marks this repository official for the paper. named in the paper: The archive records that the paper mentions this repository; it is not marked official. community (archive-listed): In the archive's code links for this paper, not marked official and not recorded as mentioned in the paper. found in paper text by Syntology: Syntology found this repository in the paper's own text; whether it is the authors' implementation is not asserted. community: Not in the archive's code links for this paper; a community repository Syntology harvested. Samples from a repository marked official are listed first. Licence labels name the repository's licence as recorded at harvest. “Pointer only” means Syntology does not serve that copy's text, for one of four reasons: no licence file was found; the licence was not identified; the licence is recorded as permissive but that copy's record is not marked cleared; or the licence is outside the permissive list Syntology serves text under (MIT, Apache-2.0, BSD and similar). Some licences outside that list permit redistribution, such as WTFPL, and GPL-3.0 under its conditions; they are simply not on the list. Hover a licence label for the reason. File links open the file on GitHub at the default branch, which may have changed since the harvest.

flatten_all_but_nth_dim aced125/sparsemax/sparsemax/utils.py community (archive-listed) ran · our draft was wrong MIT (permissive) · 32ac3d67805b2251 · report
relational_attention ZJUHSY/2020-/model.py community (archive-listed) ran · fixture could not drive it fingerprinted no licence file found · pointer only · ce92cc99dd76380b · report
unflatten_all_but_nth_dim aced125/sparsemax/sparsemax/utils.py community (archive-listed) ran · our draft was wrong MIT (permissive) · bdec64ff3f52a1cc · report
resnet_layer si-qi/protoattend/model.py community (archive-listed) unverified Apache-2.0 (permissive) · ae96c336f5bbf25c · report

Tasks

Decision MakingGeneral ClassificationInterpretable Machine Learning

Results from the paper archive 2025-07-28

No leaderboard rows for this paper in the archive.

Methods

Interpretability

Report a problem or propose a change · a person checks every report against the paper or source before anything changes; decisions are listed on /corrections