arXiv:2605.28057cs.LGcs.AI2026-05中稿 · ICML被引 2

首次建立测试时自适应的理论框架,揭示其可靠性边界。

On the Learnability of Test-Time Adaptation: A Recovery Complexity Perspective

论文配图:On the Learnability of Test-Time Adaptation: A Recovery Complexity Perspective
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 提出恢复复杂度与可学习性新定义,量化模型适应能力
  • 发现适应性与信息量存在固有权衡,极限性能受分布漂移类型影响
  • 适用于研究持续或突变分布变化下的模型鲁棒性

测试时自适应(TTA)旨在不依赖标注数据的情况下,使模型在非平稳测试流中保持可靠性能。尽管其实验表现良好,但其在非平稳流中的可学习性尚未得到理论探索。核心挑战在于缺乏一个同时契合TTA目标、能刻画连续分布漂移和内在信息约束的原理性理论框架。为此,我们提出了首个研究TTA可学习性的理论框架,引入$(ε,δ)$-恢复复杂度和$(ε,ρ)$-TTA可学习性概念。恢复复杂度衡量在分布偏移后,维持超出风险低于目标水平的概率所需时间;该概念进一步扩展为TTA可学习性,用于评估长期可靠性。在此框架下,我们提出一种新的离散代理模型以统一分析渐进与突变漂移,推导出恢复复杂度的上下界,揭示了TTA的根本极限及适应性与信息间的内在权衡。这些结果为TTA提供了统一的学习保证,补充了基于损失累积的分析。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Test-time adaptation (TTA) aims to adapt models to maintain reliable performance on non-stationary test streams without requiring labeled data. Despite its empirical success, the learnability of TTA under non-stationary streams remains unexplored. A key challenge is the lack of a principled theoretical framework that simultaneously aligns with the TTA objective and captures both continuously evolving distribution shifts and intrinsic information constraints. To address this gap, we propose the first theoretical framework for studying the learnability of TTA and introduce $(ε,δ)$-Recovery Complexity and $(ε,ρ)$-TTA Learnability. Recovery complexity measures the post-shift time needed to maintain excess risk below a target level with high probability, and is further extended to TTA learnability, which measures the long-term reliability of TTA. Within this framework, we introduce a novel discrete surrogate for non-stationary test streams, enabling a unified and tractable analysis of both gradual and abrupt shifts. We derive order-wise matching lower and upper bounds on recovery complexity, revealing fundamental limits of TTA and an intrinsic adaptivity-information trade-off. These results provide unified learnability guarantees for TTA that complement regret-based analyses.

测试时自适应理论分析分布漂移

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