Noise, traditionally considered a nuisance in computational systems, is reconsidered for its unexpected and counter-intuitive benefits across a wide spectrum of domains, including nonlinear information processing, signal processing, image processing, machine learning, network science, and natural language processing. Through a comprehensive review of both historical and contemporary research, this survey presents a dual perspective on noise, acknowledging its potential to both disrupt and enhance performance. Particularly, we highlight how noise-enhanced training strategies can lead to models that better generalize from noisy data, positioning noise not just as a challenge to overcome but as a strategic tool for improvement. This work calls for a shift in how we perceive noise, proposing that it can be a spark for innovation and advancement in the information era.
@article{abdolazimi2026harnessingnoise,
title = {Harnessing the Power of Noise: A Survey of Techniques and Applications},
author = {Reyhaneh Abdolazimi and Shengmin Jin and Pramod K. Varshney and Reza Zafarani},
year = {2026},
keywords = {journal},
journal = {ACM Computing Surveys},
volume = {58},
number = {13},
pages = {1--27},
abstract = {Noise, traditionally considered a nuisance in computational systems, is reconsidered for its unexpected and counter-intuitive benefits across a wide spectrum of domains, including nonlinear information processing, signal processing, image processing, machine learning, network science, and natural language processing. Through a comprehensive review of both historical and contemporary research, this survey presents a dual perspective on noise, acknowledging its potential to both disrupt and enhance performance. Particularly, we highlight how noise-enhanced training strategies can lead to models that better generalize from noisy data, positioning noise not just as a challenge to overcome but as a strategic tool for improvement. This work calls for a shift in how we perceive noise, proposing that it can be a spark for innovation and advancement in the information era.},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3811813},
pdf = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/epdf/10.1145/3811813},
}