In plain words: Blurry heatmaps that show where a geolocation model looks are cut into separate object-like pieces, then each piece is hidden or added back to see how the guess changes. Heatmap pieces kept more of the model's clue than random pieces of the same size.
Abstract · Object-Level Explanations for Image Geolocation Models: a GeoGuessr use-case
When humans play geolocation games such as GeoGuessr, they rely on concrete visual cues, such as road markings, vegetation, or architectural details, to infer where an image was captured. Whether image geolocation models rely on similar object-level evidence remains difficult to determine, as attribution methods like Grad-CAM typically highlight diffuse regions rather than coherent visual entities, making it difficult to link model predictions to specific objects or perceptible patterns. In this work, we propose an object-centric analysis pipeline to investigate the visual evidence used by geolocation models. Starting from attribution maps, we extract salient regions and segment them into object-like elements. We evaluate their predictive relevance through deletion and insertion tests, comparing attributionguided crops to randomly selected regions with similar coverage. Experiments on a three-country benchmark show that attribution-guided crops consistently retain more information for the model's prediction than random crops. These results suggest that attribution maps can be decomposed into interpretable, perceptible elements, providing a step toward object-level analysis of geolocation models.
Emilie Durrieu, Christophe Hurter, Philippe Muller, Victor Boutin
arXiv:2605.00912 · cs.CV · submitted Apr 29, 2026
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