DUA-D2C: Dynamic Uncertainty Aware Method for Overfitting Remediation in Deep Learning

Abstract

Overfitting remains a significant challenge in deep learning, often arising from data outliers, noise, and limited training data. To address this, we previously proposed the Divide2Conquer (D2C) method, which partitions training data into multiple subsets and trains identical models independently on each. This strategy enables learning more consistent patterns while minimizing the influence of individual outliers and noise. D2C's standard aggregation typically treats all subset models equally or based on fixed heuristics (like data size), potentially underutilizing information about their varying generalization capabilities. Building upon this foundation, we introduce Dynamic Uncertainty-Aware Divide2Conquer (DUA-D2C), an advanced technique that refines the aggregation process. DUA-D2C dynamically weights the contributions of subset models based on their performance on a shared validation set, employing a novel composite score of accuracy and normalized prediction entropy. This intelligent aggregation allows the central model to preferentially learn from subsets yielding more generalizable and confident edge models, thereby more effectively combating overfitting. In this work, we provide a rigorous theoretical justification for this approach, analytically demonstrating how dynamic parameter fusion reduces model variance. Empirical evaluations on benchmark datasets spanning image, audio, and text domains demonstrate that DUA-D2C significantly improves generalization. Our analysis includes evaluations of decision boundaries, loss curves, and ablation studies, highlighting that DUA-D2C provides additive performance gains even when applied on top of standard regularizers like Dropout. This study establishes it as a theoretically grounded and effective approach to combating overfitting in deep learning. Our code is publicly available at: https://github.com/Saiful185/DUAD2C.