Attention and Error Map Visualization

How to interpret these maps?

Here, we show 100 randomly sampled attention and error maps from our test data (no cherry picking). Specifically, for a given image and question, we show the following in the respective column order: VQA-Net's Answer, the ground truth (GT) answer, our Error Map (ErrMap), our Justifying Module Attention Maps (J-Att), our best performing BestBERT Attention Maps (BestBERT), the baseline attention (BaselineBERT) and the human-annotated attention map.

ErrMap: Ideally, the VQA should be wrong if this strongly points to relevant regions in the image (eg, index 12). Note how this map sometimes points to the relevant regions, but is weaker than the attention maps (BestBERT or J-Att), and hence the VQA is correct (index 53). Note that the ErrMap visualization here is slightly different from the paper. We have multiplied the map with the Failure prediction probability for a better visualization.

BestBERT: Ideally, this should point to relevant regions when the VQA is correct and not when the VQA is wrong. Eg, Index 5, bestBERT points to relevant areas, answer is correct; Index 33, it points to the food instead of the table, hence answer incorrect.

J-Att: Ideally, this should point to relevant regions when the VQA is correct and not when the VQA is wrong. However, since this was trained to be similar to human-annotated attention, note how this attention is mostly always relevant and centered even when the VQA is wrong.

BaselineBERT: Ideally, this should point to relevant regions when the VQA is correct and not when the VQA is wrong. However, it does so less on average than compared to BestBERT - that is, it often looks at relevant regions when the VQA is incorrect and vice versa. Eg, Index 54, the BaselineBERT looks at the orange juice and still answers no.

Overall, note how looking the attention maps alone is mostly insufficient to explain why the machine is correct/wrong

Now try looking at the Error Map as well.

Interpreting ErrMap + BestBERT/J-Att/BaselineBERT Attentions: For the best explanation, look at both the Error Map (ErrMap) and either of our Attention Maps. Note how:

When there are no error regions or they are away from the attended regions (eg, index 2), the VQA is mostly correct.

When the error map strongly points to the attention map regions (eg, index 12), the VQA fails

If the attention map is clearly looking at irrelevant areas, the answer is likely incorrect. (index 1, BestBERT is not looking at the people; index 4, BestBERT looks at car and not the parking lines)

Also note how the VQA is correct when the attentions are strongly on the correct regions and the error maps are weak or pointed away from the relevant areas.

Note that all cases may not work as expected, but it mostly should. The GT answer comes from the publicly available VQA 2.0 dataset. We have also included our Justifying Module's failure prediction results on each case in the last column. A prediction of True means the VQA will fail.

Index	Question	Robot Answer	GT Answer	Failure Pred (our)
0	is there a bridge in the background	yes	yes	False
1	are these people playing on the same team	no	yes	False
2	what is the green vegetable	broccoli	broccoli	False
3	was this photo taken this century	yes	no	False
4	is this a parking lot	no	yes	False
5	is the man wearing shorts	yes	yes	False
6	what color is the field	green	green	True
7	is the dog being aggressive	no	no	False
8	are the men in yellow vests loading luggage onto the plane	no	no	False
9	what is on top of the elephant	duck	bird	False
10	what object is below the street sign	bus	mirror	True
11	is the water calm	no	no	False
12	who uses this bathroom	people	patient	True
13	what color are the animals in the photo	black and white	black white	True
14	are there tomatoes on the pizza	yes	yes	False
15	is this mobile ready for use	yes	no	False
16	what color is the photo	black and white	black and white	True
17	are there riders on each bike	yes	yes	False
18	what is the many using to take a picture	camera	phone	False
19	are they going forward of backward	yes	forward	False
20	what color is the countertop	white	white	True
21	what is covering the windows	blinds	blinds	False
22	are they at home	no	no	False
23	is the giraffe being gentle	yes	yes	False
24	is this a practice match	yes	yes	False
25	is the man going to jump over the train	no	no	False
26	is the dog being aggressive	no	no	False
27	is this a selkirk rex	no	no	False
28	does the boy double layer clothing	yes	yes	False
29	what is the plane preparing to do	fly	land	True
30	is this a recent photo	no	no	False
31	what are they playing	baseball	baseball	False
32	is there a bowl seen	no	yes	False
33	what color is the table	brown	white	True
34	is there a toaster on the counter	yes	yes	False
35	how many girls are in this picture	2	2	False
36	why is part of the photo blurry	no	movement	True
37	does this belong to a man or woman	woman	woman	False
38	what is floating in the sky	kite	kites	False
39	are there any people on this picture	no	no	False
40	are they on a boat	yes	yes	False
41	where are the people behind the bars	behind fence	in jail	True
42	is this girl wearing nail polish	no	yes	False
43	what is the person looking at	kite	kite	False
44	what items are on the rug	books	there is no rug that's bedspread	True
45	where are the yellow cabs	car	road	True
46	what animal is on the bench	cat	cat	False
47	are the cows being milked	yes	yes	False
48	what color is the signal light	yellow	red	True
49	how many slices of chicken are in this picture	2	15	True
50	how many people are seated	3	2	False
51	is the girl running from the elephant	no	no	False
52	is this girl wearing nail polish	no	yes	False
53	which way is the giraffe facing	right	right	False
54	is that orange juice	yes	no	False
55	what is the man doing	cooking	writing	True
56	is the man wearing a helmet	no	no	False
57	which food is a side order	fries	fries	True
58	what are the people doing	flying kites	flying kites	False
59	what color is the traffic light	red	red	True
60	why is the man wearing protective gear	safety	yes	True
61	what color is the bus	white	white and blue	True
62	how many of the calf's eyes can we see in this	1	1	False
63	is the lady in front about to hit the ball	yes	yes	False
64	how many bridges are there	2	1	False
65	is this a subway	yes	no	False
66	are the mobiles being charged	no	yes	False
67	how many motors does the boat have	2	2	False
68	what breed of pony is that	horse	shetland	True
69	what color is his tie	black	black	True
70	what time of day is this	night	night	False
71	what sport is the girls playing	soccer	soccer	False
72	what is dripping from the broccoli	noodles	cheese	True
73	what is flying behind the structure	flag	flag	False
74	who is speaking	man	woman	True
75	what color is the trash can	black	gray	True
76	where are the ties	nowhere	on rack	True
77	what is the jersey number for the player at bat	5	9	True
78	what's the color on the	white	black	True
79	is the print small	yes	yes	False
80	what kind of food is this	chinese	chinese	False
81	is there water	yes	yes	False
82	what does the clock say	5:00	kerttuli	True
83	how many objects are there	many	9	True
84	what color are the flowers	yellow	multi	True
85	is the bathtub clean	yes	no	False
86	what city and country is featured	london	london, england	True
87	where is the detour to	street	oxford street	True
88	are the people looking uphill	no	no	False
89	are the person's veins	yes	yes	False
90	is a hurricane going on	no	no	False
91	what color is the cab of the truck	red	red	True
92	is the motorcycle rider wearing boots	no	yes	False
93	what sport is the boy playing	tennis	tennis	False
94	highest number shown is 60	yes	yes	True
95	what color is man's suit	black	tan	True
96	is this indoors	yes	yes	False
97	what is the person wearing	tie	tie	False
98	would you like to be the person filming this shot	yes	yes	False
99	what shape is this plate	rectangle	square	True