Transfer Learning

Ask about this topic

Overview

Transfer learning asks how a model trained on one task or domain can help with another, reducing the need for target-specific data and computation. Common approaches include pretraining followed by fine-tuning or parameter-efficient adapters, feature alignment for domain shifts, and knowledge transfer through distillation, model merging, or shared representations. Evaluations span zero-shot and few-shot transfer, cross-domain benchmarks in vision and language, and adaptation in settings such as clinical data, robotics, and scientific modeling. A central tension is that transferred knowledge can improve accuracy and sample efficiency or cause negative transfer; predicting when it will help, and separating reusable knowledge from dataset or architecture effects, remains difficult.

Latest papers

CardsList

422 papers62 papers in the last four weeks, up 29% on the four weeks before. 0.4% of all new papers.

  1. Transfer learning via interpolating structures

    Mar 23, 2026T. A. Dardeno, A. J. Hughes, L. A. Bull +3Transfer LearningCross-Domain Transfer Learning

    Dynamics Research Group, School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 3JD, UK · School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8SQ, Scotland

  2. Restoring Neural Network Plasticity for Faster Transfer Learning

    Mar 21, 2026Xander Coetzer, Arné Schreuder, Anna Sergeevna BosmanTransfer LearningLoss of Plasticity

    Department of Computer Science, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa

  3. Improving Generalization on Cybersecurity Tasks with Multi-Modal Contrastive Learning

    Mar 20, 2026Jianan Huang, Rodolfo V. Valentim, Luca Vassio +4Cross-Modal Representation TransferCybersecurity

    Politecnico di Torino, Italy · Universit`a di Torino, Italy · Huawei Paris Research Center, France

  4. Anisotropic Permeability Tensor Prediction from Porous Media Microstructure via Physics-Informed Progressive Transfer Learning with Hybrid CNN-Transformer

    Mar 18, 2026Mohammad NooraiepourMaterials Property PredictionPorous Media Flow

    Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Oslo, PO Box 1047 Blindern, 0316 Oslo, Norway

  5. The Metric Slingshot: Navigational Reuse as Width-Optimal Structural Decoupling in Continual Learning

    Mar 16, 2026Xin LiNeural ProcessesContinual Learning

    Department of Computer Science University at Albany, SUNY Albany, NY 12222, USA

  6. Evolutionary Transfer Learning for Dragonchess

    Mar 16, 2026Jim O'Connor, Annika Hoag, Sarah Goyette +1Game-Playing AgentsTransfer Learning

    Computer Science Department, Connecticut College, New London, United States

  7. BiTro: Bidirectional Transfer Learning Enhances Bulk and Spatial Transcriptomics Prediction in Cancer Pathological Images

    Mar 16, 2026Jingkun Yu, Guangkai Shang, Changtao Li +4Gene Expression Prediction from Histopathology ImagesSpatial Gene Expression Prediction

    SWJTU-Leeds Joint School, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China · Yu-Yue Pathology Scientific Research Center, Jinfeng Laboratory, Chongqing, China · Department of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, West China School of Public Health and West China Fourth Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China +2

  8. A Lightweight, Transferable, and Self-Adaptive Framework for Intelligent DC Arc-Fault Detection in Photovoltaic Systems

    Mar 16, 2026Xiaoke Yang, Long Gao, Haoyu He +5Fault DetectionPower Systems

    EcoFlow Inc, Shenzhen, China. · AAU Energy, Aalborg University, Denmark

  9. An Empirical Investigation of Pre-Trained Deep Learning Model Reuse in the Scientific Process

    Mar 13, 2026Nicholas M. Synovic, Karolina Ryzka, Alessandra V. Vellucci Solari +3AI-Assisted Scientific ResearchTransfer Learning

    Computer Science Department, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA · Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

  10. Causal Cellular Context Transfer Learning (C3TL): An Efficient Architecture for Prediction of Unseen Perturbation Effects

    Mar 13, 2026Michael Scholkemper, Sach MukherjeeTransfer LearningCross-Domain Transfer Learning

    Statistics and Machine Learning, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Bonn, Germany. · Statistics and Machine Learning, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) Bonn, Germany, University of Bonn, Germany & University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

  11. Forecasting Epileptic Seizures from Contactless Camera via Cross-Species Transfer Learning

    Mar 13, 2026Mingkai Zhai, Wei Wang, Zongsheng Li +1Transfer Learning

    Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China · Shanghai Chuangzhi Institute, Shanghai, China · The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China

  12. Cross-Species Transfer Learning for Electrophysiology-to-Transcriptomics Mapping in Cortical GABAergic Interneurons

    Mar 11, 2026Theo Schwider, Ramin RamezaniClassificationTransfer Learning

  13. A Hierarchical Error-Corrective Graph Framework for Autonomous Agents with LLM-Based Action Generation

    Mar 9, 2026Cong Cao, Jingyao Zhang, Kun TongFailure Attribution for LLM AgentsLLM Agent Reliability

    Independent Researcher, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China · Beihang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

  14. EnergyAction: Unimanual to Bimanual Composition with Energy-Based Models

    Mar 9, 2026Mingchen Song, Xiang Deng, Jie Wei +3Bimanual Robotic ManipulationPolicy Learning

    Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen) · PengCheng Laboratory · Shenzhen Loop Area Institute

  15. Breaking the Scale Barrier: One-Shot Knowledge Transfer via Frequency Transform

    Mar 8, 2026Jianlu Shen, Fu Feng, Yucheng Xie +2Transfer Learning

    School of Computer Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China · Key Laboratory of New Generation Artificial Intelligence Technology and Its Interdisciplinary Applications (Southeast University), Ministry of Education, China

  16. A Unified Framework for Knowledge Transfer in Bidirectional Model Scaling

    Mar 8, 2026Jianlu Shen, Fu Feng, Jiaze Xu +3Transfer LearningLanguage Model Scaling

    School of Computer Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China · Key Laboratory of New Generation Artificial Intelligence Technology and Its Interdisciplinary Applications (Southeast University), Ministry of Education, China

  17. Match4Annotate: Cross-Video Annotation Transfer in Ultrasound via Implicit Feature Flow-Guided Matching

    Mar 6, 2026Zhuorui Zhang, Roger Pallarès-López, Praneeth Namburi +1Image MatchingMedical Image Registration

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA · Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA · MIT.nano Immersion Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA

  18. Lightweight and Scalable Transfer Learning Framework for Load Disaggregation

    Mar 5, 2026L. E. Garcia-Marrero, G. Petrone, E. MonmassonNon-Intrusive Load MonitoringTransfer Learning

    Systèmes et Applications des Technologies de l’Information et de l’Energie laboratory, Cergy-Pontoise · Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione ed Elettrica e Matematica Applicata/DIEM, University of Salerno, 84084 Fisciano

  19. Osmosis Distillation: Model Hijacking with the Fewest Samples

    Mar 5, 2026Yuchen Shi, Huajie Chen, Heng Xu +6Data Poisoning AttacksTransfer Learning

    Faculty of Data Science, City University of Macau. · College of Cyber Security, Jinan University. · The University of Sydney.

  20. Prism: Policy Reuse via Interpretable Strategy Mapping in Reinforcement Learning

    Mar 4, 2026Thomas PravetzRL for Game AIZero-Shot Policy Transfer

  21. Directional Neural Collapse Explains Few-Shot Transfer in Self-Supervised Learning

    Mar 3, 2026Achleshwar Luthra, Yash Salunkhe, Tomer GalantiNeural CollapseTransfer Learning

    Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Texas A&M University.

  22. Can Computational Reducibility Lead to Transferable Models for Graph Combinatorial Optimization?

    Mar 2, 2026Semih Cantürk, Thomas Sabourin, Frederik Wenkel +2Neural Combinatorial OptimizationTransfer Learning

    Dept. of Computer Science and Operations Research, Université de Montréal · Mila – Quebec AI Institute · Dept. of Mathematics & Statistics, Université de Montréal +2

  23. Enhanced Atrial Fibrillation Prediction in ESUS Patients with Hypergraph-based Pre-training

    Mar 2, 2026Yuzhang Xie, Yuhua Wu, Ruiyu Wang +3Clinical Risk PredictionHypergraph Learning

    Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

  24. LUMOS: Latent Universal Medical Priors for Segmentation

    Mar 1, 2026Zhuonan Liang, Wei Guo, Jie Gan +4Medical Image SegmentationTransfer Learning

    The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. · Biological System & Engineering Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. · Berkeley Biomedical Data Science Center, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

  25. PRISM: Exploring Heterogeneous Pretrained EEG Foundation Model Transfer to Clinical Differential Diagnosis

    Feb 28, 2026Jeet Bandhu Lahiri, Parshva Runwal, Arvasu Kulkarni +4EEG Foundation ModelsTransfer Learning

    Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, India · NeuroDx, India

  26. Benchmarking Few-shot Transferability of Pre-trained Models with Improved Evaluation Protocols

    Feb 28, 2026Xu Luo, Ji Zhang, Lianli Gao +2Few-Shot LearningTransfer Learning

    University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China. · Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China. · Tongji University, Shanghai, China.

  27. Extending 2D foundational DINOv3 representations to 3D segmentation of neonatal brain MR images

    Feb 27, 2026Annayah Usman, Behraj Khan, Tahir Qasim SyedMedical Image Segmentation3D Medical Image Segmentation

    Institute of Business Administration Karachi

  28. Exploring Robust Intrusion Detection: A Benchmark Study of Feature Transferability in IoT Botnet Attack Detection

    Feb 27, 2026Alejandro Guerra-Manzanares, Jialin HuangIoT Intrusion DetectionCross-Domain Generalization

    School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China · School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom

  29. HATL: Hierarchical Adaptive-Transfer Learning Framework for Sign Language Machine Translation

    Feb 26, 2026Nada Shahin, Leila IsmailSign Language TranslationTransfer Learning

    Intelligent Distributed Computing and Systems (INDUCE) Lab, Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, College of Information Technology, United Arab Emirates University, Abu Dhabi 15551, United Arab Emirates · Emirates Center for Mobility Research, United Arab Emirates University, Abu Dhabi 15551, United Arab Emirates

  30. Align then Adapt: Rethinking Parameter-Efficient Transfer Learning in 4D Perception

    Feb 26, 2026Yiding Sun, Jihua Zhu, Haozhe Cheng +4Transfer LearningPoint Cloud Learning

    the School of Software Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710048, China · the State Key Laboratory of Human-Machine Hybrid Augmented Intelligence, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710048, China · the School of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China +1