Are the High-weight Neurons the Important Ones in Image Classification Neural Networks?

[2607.25529] Are the High-weight Neurons the Important Ones in Image Classification Neural Networks? Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence arXiv:2607.25529 (cs) [Submitted on 28 Jul 2026 ( v1 ), last revised 27 Aug 2026 (this version, v2)] Title: Are the High-weight Neurons the Important Ones in Image Classification Neural Networks? Authors: Qitao Chen , Dongfu Yin , Xirui Yang , Zhaoye Li , Liang Xiao View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: As neural network models for image classification advance, neurons play critical roles in pruning, backdoor defense, and interpretability. Yet existing work lacks clarity on the weight-importance relationship. We address this with a neuron importance assessment method using three experiments: quantifying overlap between high-weight and accuracy-impacting neurons, analyzing high-weight neuron perturbation effects, and testing post-retraining accuracy after high-weight neuron ablation. Experiments on CIFAR-10 and Mini-ImageNet reveal key patterns. Overlap analysis shows top 10\% high-weight neurons overlap with important ones by only about 25\% at maximum, dropping further in subsequent intervals. Perturbation tests find top 10\% high-weight neurons cause 45-80\% accuracy degradation under certain operations compared to 3-7\% for random perturbations, but a third of them show minimal impact. Ablation-retraining results show removing top 10\% high-weight neurons leaves accuracy 10-20\% below baseline with no recovery, while ablating top 0.1\% allows near-full recovery. Notably, some low-weight intervals show 10-17\% degradation when perturbed, comparable to mid-range high-weight neurons. These results confirm not all high-weight neurons are important: their importance is nonlinear. Low-weight neurons also contribute significantly. This challenges weight-importance equivalence, offering refined neuron role insights. It supports applications like encryption prioritizing critical high-weight neurons and pruning removing non-critical ones, advancing neural network analysis. Subjects: Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI) Cite as: arXiv:2607.25529 [cs.AI] (or arXiv:2607.25529v2 [cs.AI] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2607.25529 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Dongfu Yin [ view email ] [v1] Tue, 28 Jul 2026 10:14:35 UTC (3,281 KB) [v2] Thu, 27 Aug 2026 02:03:47 UTC (5,237 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Additional Features Audio Summary Current browse context: cs.AI < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-07 Change to browse by: cs References & Citations SciX Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs . Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax ( What is MathJax? ) We gratefully acknowledge support from our major funders , member institutions , and all contributors. About · Help · Contact · Subscribe · Copyright · Privacy · Accessibility · Operational Status (opens in new tab)

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