arXiv:2512.10421cs.CV2025-12被引 2

提出新方法提升模型在分布外数据下的推理鲁棒性。

Neural Collapse in Test-Time Adaptation

  • 发现样本级特征与分类器权重对齐失效现象,揭示性能下降根源。
  • 在ImageNet-C上比Tent提升14.52%,显著增强域外适应能力。
  • 适合关注模型泛化与推理稳定性研究的读者。

测试时自适应(TTA)通过在推理阶段在线更新模型来提升模型对分布外(OOD)数据的鲁棒性,但现有方法缺乏对性能退化根本原因的理论理解。近期提出的神经坍缩(NC)为深度神经网络提供了有价值的几何洞察。本文将NC拓展至样本层面,发现一种新现象——样本级对齐坍缩(NC3+),即训练后样本的特征嵌入与其对应分类器权重高度对齐。基于此,我们发现性能下降源于适应过程中样本级错位,且在更大分布偏移下加剧。这表明需重新对齐特征与分类器权重。然而,错位导致伪标签不可靠。为此,我们提出NCTTA,一种结合几何接近度与预测置信度的混合目标对齐方法,以缓解伪标签不可靠的影响。大量实验表明,NCTTA能有效提升对分布偏移的鲁棒性,例如在ImageNet-C上比Tent提升14.52%。项目主页公开于https://github.com/Cevaaa/NCTTA。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Test-Time Adaptation (TTA) enhances model robustness to out-of-distribution (OOD) data by updating the model online during inference, yet existing methods lack theoretical insights into the fundamental causes of performance degradation under domain shifts. Recently, Neural Collapse (NC) has been proposed as an emergent geometric property of deep neural networks (DNNs), providing valuable insights for TTA. In this work, we extend NC to the sample-wise level and discover a novel phenomenon termed Sample-wise Alignment Collapse (NC3+), demonstrating that a sample's feature embedding, obtained by a trained model, aligns closely with the corresponding classifier weight. Building on NC3+, we identify that the performance degradation stems from sample-wise misalignment in adaptation which exacerbates under larger distribution shifts. This indicates the necessity of realigning the feature embeddings with their corresponding classifier weights. However, the misalignment makes pseudo-labels unreliable under domain shifts. To address this challenge, we propose NCTTA, a novel feature-classifier alignment method with hybrid targets to mitigate the impact of unreliable pseudo-labels, which blends geometric proximity with predictive confidence. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of NCTTA in enhancing robustness to domain shifts. For example, NCTTA outperforms Tent by 14.52% on ImageNet-C. Project page is publicly available at https://github.com/Cevaaa/NCTTA.

测试时自适应神经坍缩域外泛化

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