In-Context Example Selection

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Overview

The field studies which labeled examples, demonstrations, or other context to place in a model’s prompt so it can generalize to a new query. Common approaches retrieve semantically similar examples, while others optimize for diversity and latent coverage, task-specific utility, decision-boundary cases, or signals from model activations; learned ranking, bandit, and reinforcement-learning methods also refine selections. Methods are evaluated across settings such as classification, reasoning, translation, multimodal tasks, and tabular prediction, often measuring accuracy alongside prompt length, latency, or robustness to noise. A central tension is that similarity is cheap but can miss useful contrasts, while more tailored selection can improve results yet may be costly or fail to transfer across models and tasks.

Latest papers

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29 papers4 papers in the last four weeks, down 20% on the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

  1. POS-Signature Demonstration Retrieval for In-Context Dependency Parsing

    Oct 22, 2026Muhammad Azam Afridi, Rajab Ali, Marco PassarottiIn-Context Example SelectionDependency Parsing

    Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy · University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain · Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal +1

  2. From Observation to Intervention: Distilling Self-Generated In-Context Demonstrations via Executable Causal Intervention

    Oct 15, 2026Minming Ye, Min Liu, Haoang Chi +2In-Context LearningIn-Context Example Selection

    Shanghai Jiaotong University · Academy of Military Science · National University of Defense Technology

  3. TraceICL: Thread-Resolved Demonstration Curation with Consistency Calibration for Robust Multimodal In-Context Learning

    Oct 7, 2026Yigit Yilmaz, Elena Petrova, Mehmet Kaya +2Multimodal ICLIn-Context Example Selection

    Bandirma Onyedi Eylul University

  4. Exploring In-Context Learning for Handwritten Text Recognition

    Sep 29, 2026Eric Ayllon, Abel Gandia, Jorge Calvo-ZaragozaIn-Context Example SelectionVision-Language Models

  5. You Only Edit Once: Incentivizing In-Context Capability of LLMs via Local Demonstration Refinement

    Sep 27, 2026Jiarong Wen, Qi Wang, Yun Qu +8LLM Inference EfficiencyIn-Context Example Selection

    Department of Automation, Tsinghua University

  6. PULSE: Identifying Demonstration-Utility Features with Sparse Autoencoders

    Sep 26, 2026Chenduo Hao, Chuanbao Gao, Pinjun Zeng +4In-Context Example SelectionIn-Context Learning

    Southeast University · University of California, Los Angeles · School of Architecture, The University of Texas at Austin

  7. ClusterFewshot: Improving Few-shot Optimization for LLMs workflow

    Sep 22, 2026Omri Bar Haim, Shahar Katz, Lior WolfIn-Context Example SelectionLarge Language Model-Guided Optimization

    Blavatnik School of Computer Science, Tel Aviv University

  8. Long-Context Demonstration Selection Using State Space Models

    Sep 15, 2026Ziniu Zhang, Zhenshuo Zhang, Ruoxuan Xiong +2In-Context Example SelectionIn-Context Learning

    Northeastern University · Emory University

  9. Data Efficient Sample Selection for In-Context Learning

    Sep 6, 2026V Venktesh, Cem Levi, Avishek AnandIn-Context Example SelectionIn-Context Learning

    Stockholm University · SKIM Group B.V. · TU Delft

  10. ARASH: Adaptive Retrieval And Shot Selection for Tabular Prediction

    Aug 18, 2026Samirasadat Jamalidinan, Yue Xu, Kazem CheshmiTabular PredictionTabular ICL

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering McMaster University Hamilton, ON, Canada

  11. When Less Is Enough: Context Selection and Prompting Strategies for Bengali News Headline Generation

    Aug 16, 2026Muhammad Ashad Kabir, Kawsar Ahmed, Md. OsamaLLM PromptingText Generation

    Charles Sturt University Bathurst, NSW, Australia · Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology Chittagong, Bangladesh · Bangladesh Army University of Science and Technology Nilphamari, Bangladesh

  12. MAG: MAnifold Guided Semi-Supervised Multi-modal In-Context Learning

    Aug 13, 2026Zirui Cheng, Xun Xu, Tiankai Chen +7In-Context Example SelectionMultimodal ICL

    College of Design and Engineering, National University of Singapore · Institute for Infocomm Research, ASTAR, Singapore

  13. EdgeLM: Edge Demonstrations for Language Models' Table Understanding

    Aug 5, 2026Soroush Omidvartehrani, Mohammadamin Habibollah, Mohammadreza Daviran +1In-Context Example SelectionIn-Context Learning

    University of Alberta, Canada

  14. Gradient-free Task-Conditioned Retrieval for On-Device In-Context Learning

    Jul 30, 2026Xinyu Luo, Hui Liu, Yihua Shao +3In-Context Example SelectionIn-Context Retrieval

    City University of Hong Kong, China · Institute of Automation Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

  15. Evaluating Prompt Scope and Demonstration Similarity in Local LLM Machine Translation

    Jul 28, 2026Mihael ArcanIn-Context Example SelectionMultilingual Language Model Evaluation

    Home Lab, Galway, Ireland

  16. Bounded Context Management for Tabular Foundation Models on Stream Learning

    Jun 17, 2026Jinmo Lee, Doyun Choi, Moongi Choi +1In-Context Example SelectionTabular Foundation Models

    Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea · The Kim Jaechul Graduate School of AI, KAIST, Daejeon, Republic of Korea.

  17. Encode Errors: Representational Retrieval of In-Context Demonstrations for Multilingual Grammatical Error Correction

    Jun 13, 2026Guangyue Peng, Wei Li, Wen Luo +1In-Context Example SelectionGrammatical Error Correction

    State Key Laboratory of Multimedia Information Processing, School of Computer Science, Peking University

  18. Activation-Based Active Learning for In-Context Learning: Challenges and Insights

    Jun 3, 2026Yaseen M. Osman, Geoff V. Merrett, Stuart E. MiddletonIn-Context Example SelectionActive Learning

    School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, United Kingdom

  19. Easier to Judge than to Find: Predicting In-Context Learning Success for Demonstration Selection

    May 18, 2026Haochun Wang, Chaofen Yang, Jiatong Liu +5LLM Inference EfficiencyIn-Context Example Selection

    Research Center for Social Computing and Interactive Robotics, Harbin Institute of Technology, China.

  20. VIP-COP: Context Optimization for Tabular Foundation Models

    May 13, 2026Yilong Chen, Xueying Ding, Leman AkogluIn-Context Example SelectionTabular Foundation Models

    Carnegie Mellon University

  21. GRaSp: Automatic Example Optimization for In-Context Learning in Low-Data Tasks

    May 8, 2026Simen Bihaug-Frøyland, Henrik BrådlandIn-Context Example SelectionIn-Context Learning

    Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research, University of Agder · School of Computing and Information, University of Pittsburgh · Norkart AS

  22. UCS: Estimating Unseen Coverage for Improved In-Context Learning

    Apr 13, 2026Jiayi Xin, Xiang Li, Evan Qiang +4In-Context Example SelectionIn-Context Learning

    University of Pennsylvania

  23. Contrast Matters: Understanding Robustness of In-Context Fine-Tuning to Target-Context Relatedness

    Apr 2, 2026Deeptanshu Malu, Deevyanshu Malu, Aditya Nemiwal +1In-Context Example SelectionLLM Fine-Tuning

    IIT Bombay

  24. Learning to Select Visual In-Context Demonstrations

    Mar 24, 2026Eugene Lee, Yu-Chi Lin, Jiajie DiaoIn-Context Example SelectionMultimodal ICL

    University of Cincinnati · University of California, Los Angeles

  25. CFMS: Towards Explainable and Fine-Grained Chinese Multimodal Sarcasm Detection Benchmark

    Mar 23, 2026Junzhao Zhang, Hsiu-Yuan Huang, Chenming Tang +2Sarcasm DetectionMultimodal Model Evaluation

    National Key Laboratory for Multimedia Information Processing, Peking University · School of Computer Science, Peking University · School of Software and Microelectronics, Peking University

  26. Optimizing In-Context Demonstrations for LLM-based Automated Grading

    Feb 28, 2026Yucheng Chu, Hang Li, Kaiqi Yang +4EducationAutomated Grading

    Michigan State University · University of Southern California

  27. Predicting Contextual Informativeness for Vocabulary Learning using Deep Learning

    Feb 20, 2026Tao Wu, Adam KapelnerSupervised LearningIn-Context Example Selection

  28. TabSieve: Explicit In-Table Evidence Selection for Tabular Prediction

    Feb 12, 2026Yongyao Wang, Ziqi Miao, Lu Yang +4In-Context Example SelectionReinforcement Learning

    Gaoling School of Artificial Intelligence, Renmin University of China · Shanghai AI Laboratory

  29. Beyond Semantic Similarity: Reducing Unnecessary API Calls via Behavior-Aligned Retriever

    Aug 20, 2025Yixin Chen, Ying Xiong, Shangyu Wu +4In-Context Example SelectionIn-Context Retrieval

    City University of Hong Kong · Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence · McGill University