Papers › Learning to Describe Differences Between Pairs of Similar Images

Learning to Describe Differences Between Pairs of Similar Images

31 Aug 2018EMNLP 2018 10arXiv:1808.10584archive 2025-07-28

Harsh Jhamtani, Taylor Berg-Kirkpatrick

In this paper, we introduce the task of automatically generating text to describe the differences between two similar images. We collect a new dataset by crowd-sourcing difference descriptions for pairs of image frames extracted from video-surveillance footage. Annotators were asked to succinctly describe all the differences in a short paragraph. As a result, our novel dataset provides an opportunity to explore models that align language and vision, and capture visual salience. The dataset may also be a useful benchmark for coherent multi-sentence generation. We perform a firstpass visual analysis that exposes clusters of differing pixels as a proxy for object-level differences. We propose a model that captures visual salience by using a latent variable to align clusters of differing pixels with output sentences. We find that, for both single-sentence generation and as well as multi-sentence generation, the proposed model outperforms the models that use attention alone.

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="1808.10584")

Code

Syntology Ran 0 of 6 code samples harvested from 1 repository linked to this paper; 6 have no recorded run.

By repository: official repository: 6 samples from 1 repository, 0 ran. The run record, sample by sample. “Ran” means executed on a synthesized input, not that the code is correct or reproduces the paper.

harsh19/spot-the-diff officialmentioned in papermentioned on GitHubMIT 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

6 samples harvested; 0 ran; 0 honoured the contract we drafted; 6 have no recorded run. Read from Syntology's graph 2026-09-24; that is when this build read the record, not when the samples ran.

6unverified

Licence: 0 of the 6 samples are 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 harsh19/spot-the-diff. “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.

PIL2array harsh19/spot-the-diff/code/clustering/utilities.py official repository unverified MIT (permissive) · 4cf9d6b0e8185d87 · report
changeToBinary harsh19/spot-the-diff/code/clustering/utilities.py official repository unverified MIT (permissive) · 30d7e616f7567ada · report
findBoxPoints harsh19/spot-the-diff/code/clustering/box.py official repository unverified MIT (permissive) · 5f8c4e41595a647a · report
findRectangleCoordinates harsh19/spot-the-diff/code/clustering/box.py official repository unverified MIT (permissive) · 6ad4b197533dceaf · report
getMatrixFromIM harsh19/spot-the-diff/code/clustering/utilities.py official repository unverified MIT (permissive) · 71c404b24fb633ff · report
loadClusters harsh19/spot-the-diff/code/clustering/box.py official repository unverified MIT (permissive) · 682f15261bbaf957 · report

Tasks

Sentence

Datasets

Introduced by this paper, per the archive.

Spot-the-diff

Results from the paper archive 2025-07-28

No leaderboard rows for this paper in the archive.

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