Branch Scaling Manifests as Implicit Architectural Regularization for Improving Generalization in Overparameterized ResNets

Abstract:Scaling factors in residual branches have emerged as a prevalent method for boosting neural network performance, especially in normalization-free architectures. While prior work has primarily examined scaling effects from an optimization perspective, this paper investigates their role in residual architectures through the lens of generalization theory. Specifically, we establish that wide residual networks (ResNets) with constant scaling factors become asymptotically unlearnable as depth increases. In contrast, when the scaling factor exhibits rapid depth-wise decay combined with early stopping, over-parameterized ResNets achieve minimax-optimal generalization rates. To establish this, we demonstrate that the generalization capability of wide ResNets can be approximated by kernel regression associated with the Neural Tangent Kernel (NTK). Our theoretical findings are validated through experiments on synthetic data and real-world classification tasks, including MNIST and CIFAR-100.

Accepted by ICML 2026. This version incorporates content from the preprint arXiv:2305.18506. The contributors of the relevant content have consented to its inclusion and have been listed as authors

Machine Learning (cs.LG); Statistics Theory (math.ST)

arXiv:2403.04545 [cs.LG]

(or arXiv:2403.04545v4 [cs.LG] for this version)