A survey on Image Data Augmentation for Deep Learning

Connor Shorten, Taghi M. Khoshgoftaar · Journal Of Big Data · 2019 · machine-learning · 10.1186/s40537-019-0197-0 · record shorten2019-a-survey-on-image-data-augmentatio
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Other fields define these differently the same word, defined another way in another discipline
Transfer Learning 6 fields · overfitting 6 fields · Data Augmentation 2 fields

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Data Augmentation Generalizability overfitting data warping oversampling Dropout Batch normalization Transfer Learning Pretraining translational invariances training dataset regularization technique big data GAN samples safety class imbalance Random Oversampling SMOTE refined labels Neural Style Transfer positional bias kernel filters PatchShuffle color space transformations noise injection AUGMENTATION IS AN ASSUMPTION, AND THE PAPER STATES IT: that more information can be extracted from the dataset already held. Everything else follows from whether that is true of a given dataset WHAT AUGMENTATION IS ACTUALLY TEACHING: the invariances a recogniser must survive - viewpoint, lighting, occlusion, background, scale - are baked into the DATA rather than into the architecture SIMULATING BIG DATA RATHER THAN OBTAINING IT: overfitting is not much of a problem when data is abundant, so augmentation gives a limited dataset the characteristics of an abundant one rotation degree review
Method, as described: a survey organised by where the augmentation intervenes, with medical imaging as the motivating limited-data case

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limitationlimitationswhat the paper says its evidence cannot support
mechanismmechanismshow the reported effect is said to come about
methodmethodhow the paper produced its evidence
object of studyobject_of_studywhat the paper is about — the thing it investigates
phenomenonphenomenonthe effect or regularity under study
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transfertransfersa method or concept carried in from another field

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claim_type 1 · concept_edges 5 · concepts 25 · content_tags 13 · contribution 1 · limitations 12 · mechanisms 10 · method 1 · object_of_study 1 · phenomenon 1 · research_question 1 · senses 3 · transfers 2

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facettagfieldconf.whose words
object_of_studyimage Data Augmentation techniques, from geometric transforms to GANs, as a remedy for overfitting on limited data
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object_of_studythe paper's words
research_questionwhat to do about overfitting when the application domain has no big data to be had
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research_questionthe paper's words
contributiona taxonomy of image augmentation split into data warping and oversampling, together with the statement that the split is not exclusive
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contributionthe paper's words
claim_typemethod
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claim_typethe paper's words
phenomenonoverfitting - a model learning a function of very high variance that models its training data perfectly
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phenomenonthe paper's words
methodreview
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methodthe paper's words
mechanismsmechanisms
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mechanisms[0]0.95the tagger's words
mechanismsmechanisms
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mechanisms[1]0.95the tagger's words
mechanismsmechanisms
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mechanisms[2]0.95the tagger's words
mechanismsan unsafe transformation could be made useful rather than harmful by softening the label, so the model learns uncertainty instead of a falsehood - but building those labels is too costly
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mechanisms[3]0.95the tagger's words
mechanismsoversampling works by re-balancing the class distribution so the model is not biased toward answering with the majority class
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mechanisms[4]0.9the tagger's words
mechanismsmedical imaging is short of data FOR STRUCTURAL REASONS, and the paper names rarity first: `Quotation withheld`. The remaining three reasons it lists - patient privacy, the need for expert labellers, and the cost of the scans - are separated from this clause by a journal running header in the staged text and are not inside this span.
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mechanisms[5]0.95the tagger's words
mechanismsrotation safety is set by one parameter: small rotations help digit recognition and large ones destroy the label, so the same transform is safe and unsafe at different magnitudes
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mechanisms[6]0.95the tagger's words
mechanismscropping and translation differ in what they preserve - cropping shrinks the input, translation keeps the spatial dimensions and pads the vacated space
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mechanisms[7]0.95the tagger's words
mechanismscolour transformations trade colour bias for spatial characteristics, which is a gain only where colour is not the distinguishing feature
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mechanisms[8]0.95the tagger's words
mechanismsa kernel filter can be rebuilt as a convolution layer with the right padding and activation, so the augmentation duplicates what the network already does
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mechanisms[9]0.95the tagger's words
limitationsAUGMENTATION CANNOT CREATE A CLASS THAT IS ABSENT: no method surveyed will produce a golden retriever from a dataset of bulldogs. It can lessen biases of lighting, occlusion, scale and background, and it cannot supply missing content
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limitations[0]0.95the tagger's words
limitationsThe stated bias limit in the paper's own words, which bounds every technique it surveys
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limitations[1]0.85the tagger's words
limitationsThe survey covers IMAGE data only, with transfer to other data domains asserted rather than shown
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limitations[2]0.95the tagger's words
limitationsThe taxonomy the survey is organised by does not partition its own subject - warping and oversampling are stated not to be mutually exclusive
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limitations[3]0.95the tagger's words
limitationssafety is domain-dependent, which is precisely what makes a generalisable augmentation policy hard
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limitations[4]0.95the tagger's words
limitationsthere is NO image processing function that cannot flip a label at some distortion magnitude - the strongest form of the claim, stated by the authors
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limitations[5]0.95the tagger's words
limitationsconstructing refined labels for every unsafe augmentation is computationally expensive, which is why the cheap option is to avoid unsafe transforms
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limitations[6]0.9the tagger's words
limitationsmany experiments deliberately restrict themselves to a subset of a large dataset in order to SIMULATE a limited-data problem rather than face a real one
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limitations[7]0.9the tagger's words
limitationskernel filters are very close to the internal mechanism of a CNN, which is the argument for making them a layer rather than a dataset operation
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limitations[8]0.95the tagger's words
limitationsin medical imaging the gap between training and test data is more complex than position and translation, so geometric transformations have limited scope there
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limitations[9]0.95the tagger's words
limitationscolour transformations can discard the information the task depends on - darkening may hide the object entirely
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limitations[10]0.95the tagger's words
limitationstransformations that may alter the label, such as translation or random cropping, must be checked by hand
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limitations[11]0.9the tagger's words
transfersSMOTE and Borderline-SMOTE were built to interpolate new points for imbalanced TABULAR data and are carried over to images
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transfers[0]0.95the tagger's words
transferstransfer learning is explained by the anecdote that a pianist learns guitar faster, and augmentation by analogy with imagination and dreaming
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transfers[1]0.9the tagger's words
conceptsData Augmentation
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concepts[0]0.95the paper's words
conceptsGeneralizability
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concepts[1]0.95the paper's words
conceptsoverfitting
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also in: overfitting
concepts[2]0.95the paper's words
conceptsdata warping
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also in: data warping
concepts[3]0.95the paper's words
conceptsoversampling
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also in: oversampling
concepts[4]0.95the paper's words
conceptsDropout
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also in: Dropout
concepts[5]0.95the paper's words
conceptsBatch normalization
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concepts[6]0.95the paper's words
conceptsTransfer Learning
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concepts[7]0.95the paper's words
conceptsPretraining
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also in: Pretraining
concepts[8]0.85the paper's words
conceptstranslational invariances
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concepts[9]0.95the paper's words
conceptstraining dataset
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concepts[10]0.95the paper's words
conceptsregularization technique
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concepts[11]0.95the paper's words
conceptsbig data
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also in: big data
concepts[12]0.95the paper's words
conceptsGAN samples
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also in: GAN samples
concepts[13]0.95the paper's words
conceptssafety
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concepts[14]0.95the paper's words
conceptsclass imbalance
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concepts[15]0.95the paper's words
conceptsRandom Oversampling
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concepts[16]0.9the paper's words
conceptsSMOTE
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also in: SMOTE
concepts[17]0.95the paper's words
conceptsrefined labels
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concepts[18]0.9the paper's words
conceptsNeural Style Transfer
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concepts[19]0.9the paper's words
conceptspositional bias
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concepts[20]0.95the paper's words
conceptskernel filters
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concepts[21]0.95the paper's words
conceptsPatchShuffle
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also in: PatchShuffle
concepts[22]0.9the paper's words
conceptscolor space transformations
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concepts[23]0.95the paper's words
conceptsnoise injection
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concepts[24]0.9the paper's words
sensesData Augmentation - A DATA-SPACE SOLUTION, defined by WHERE it intervenes rather than by what it does: every other remedy for overfitting changes the model, and this one changes the dataset
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senses[0]0.95the tagger's words
sensesdata warping - the label is PRESERVED and an existing image is transformed
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senses[1]0.95the tagger's words
sensesoversampling - a NEW instance is synthesised and added. The paper draws the distinction and then says in the next breath that it does not partition: GAN samples can be stacked with random cropping
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senses[2]0.95the tagger's words
concept_edgesdata warping —distinct-from→ oversampling
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holds when: the two are NOT mutually exclusive - GAN samples can be stacked with random cropping, so a single augmentation can be both · strength of the relation: 0.8 Audit 2026-09-28: DOUBTFUL - read against its full span and kept, but the span says the two augmentations do NOT form a mutually exclusive dichotomy; distinct-from is hedged.
concept_edges[0]the tagger's words
concept_edgesTransfer Learning —distinct-from→ Pretraining
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strength of the relation: 1 Audit 2026-09-28: DOUBTFUL - read against its full span and kept, but endpoint by anaphora: 'This differs from Transfer Learning' - 'This' = Pretraining (previous sentences).
concept_edges[1]the tagger's words
concept_edgesDropout —is-a→ regularization technique
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strength of the relation: 1
concept_edges[2]the tagger's words
concept_edgesBatch normalization —is-a→ regularization technique
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strength of the relation: 1
concept_edges[3]the tagger's words
concept_edgesData Augmentation —causes→ overfitting
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direction on the measure: reduces · the relation itself is separately evidenced · strength of the relation: 1 · direction on the measure (stated by the tagger, no quotation): reduces · the relation stated: augmentation gives a limited dataset the characteristics of big data, and overfitting is not much of an issue when data is abundant
concept_edges[4]the tagger's words
content_tagsAlexNet's experiments used augmentation to enlarge the dataset by a factor of 2048.
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content_tags.findings[0]0.95the tagger's words
content_tagsGAN-based augmentation beat classic augmentation on liver lesion classification on both sensitivity and specificity
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content_tags.findings[1]0.95the tagger's words
content_tagsHorizontal flipping is much more common than vertical flipping.
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content_tags.findings[2]0.9the tagger's words
content_tagsconverting to grayscale costs about three points of classification accuracy against RGB on ImageNet and PASCAL VOC
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content_tags.findings[3]0.95the tagger's words
content_tagsin a head-to-head comparison of geometric against photometric augmentation, cropping produced the most accurate classifier
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content_tags.findings[4]0.95the tagger's words
content_tagsrandomly swapping pixels inside a small window lowered CIFAR-10 error against the same architecture without it
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content_tags.findings[5]0.95the tagger's words
content_tagsBlurring training images could make models more resistant to motion blur at test time.
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content_tags.findings[6]0.9the tagger's words
content_tagsthe safety of an augmentation defined as label preservation, with the cat/dog against 6/9 example
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also in: safety
content_tags.definitions[0]0.95the tagger's words
content_tagsthe factor by which AlexNet's augmentation multiplied the dataset, and the error reduction claimed for it
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content_tags.quantities[0]0.95the tagger's words
content_tagssensitivity and specificity before and after GAN-based augmentation on liver lesion classification
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content_tags.quantities[1]0.95the tagger's words
content_tagsthe CIFAR-10 error rate with and without PatchShuffle regularization, and the hyperparameters that achieved it
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content_tags.quantities[2]0.95the tagger's words
content_tagsthe accuracy drop from grayscale against RGB
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content_tags.quantities[3]0.95the tagger's words
content_tagsthe rotation degree parameter, on which the safety of a rotation augmentation depends
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content_tags.variables[0]0.95the tagger's words

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