PALATE: Peculiar Application of the Law of Total Expectation to Enhance the Evaluation of Deep Generative Models

ICLR 2026 Conference Submission18564 Authors

Keywords: Deep generative model, evaluation metric, sample memorization, law of total expectation

TL;DR: We propose PALATE, a novel enhancement to the evaluation of DGMs that addresses the limitations of FLD regarding computational efficiency

Abstract: Deep generative models (DGMs) have caused a paradigm shift in the field of machine learning, yielding noteworthy advancements in domains such as image synthesis, natural language processing, and other related areas. However, a comprehensive evaluation of these models that accounts for the trichotomy between fidelity, diversity, and novelty in generated samples remains a formidable challenge. A recently introduced solution that has emerged as a promising approach in this regard is the Feature Likelihood Divergence (FLD), a method that offers a theoretically motivated practical tool, yet also exhibits some computational challenges. In this paper, we propose PALATE, a novel enhancement to the evaluation of DGMs that addresses the limitations of FLD regarding computational efficiency. Our approach is based on a peculiar application of the law of total expectation to random variables representing accessible real data. When combined with the MMD baseline metric and DINOv2 feature extractor, PALATE offers a holistic evaluation framework that matches or surpasses state-of-the-art solutions while providing superior computational efficiency and scalability to large-scale datasets. Through a series of experiments, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the PALATE enhancement, contributing a computationally efficient, holistic evaluation approach that advances the field of DGMs assessment, especially in detecting sample memorization and evaluating generalization capabilities.

Primary Area: generative models

Submission Number: 18564