Transfer Learning

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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. Knowledge-Guided Cross-Modal Fusion for Adult-to-Pediatric ECG Transfer via Label-Conditioned Contrastive Alignment

    Jul 17, 2026Xinran Liu, Yuwen Li, Hongxiang Gao +4ElectrocardiographyCross-Modal Alignment

    School of Instrument Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, 210096, China · Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, 211166, China · Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450001, China

  2. Rethinking Transfer in Continual Learning: A Replay-Based Realisation

    Jul 17, 2026Yang Meng, Zhenya Liu, Zhuokai Zhao +1Continual Learning for LLMsExperience Replay

    Department of Computer Science, University of Chicago

  3. Local Redundancy: An Information-Theoretic Measure of Plasticity from Synthetic Memorization

    Jul 15, 2026Jiaxuan ChengContinual LearningTransfer Learning

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.

  4. LLM-Driven Neural Network Generation with Same-Family Architecture Guidance: Disentangling Transfer and Adaptation

    Jul 6, 2026Kabir Dev Paul Baghel, Radu Timofte, Dmitry IgnatovLarge Language Model-Guided OptimizationHyperparameter Transfer

    Computer Vision Lab, CAIDAS, University of Würzburg, Germany

  5. Efficient Transfer Learning of Robot Dynamic Models Using Morphological Similarity

    Jul 6, 2026Pavlo Kupyn, Yuya Hamamatsu, Roza Gkliva +2Robot Dynamics IdentificationUnsupervised Domain Adaptation

    Department of Computer Systems, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia

  6. Target-Guided Selective Reweighting for Physics-Informed Neural Network Inverse Problems: A Transfer Learning Approach

    Jul 6, 2026Qian Hu, Bin Fan, Yao Xiao +2Transfer LearningPhysics-Informed ML

    School of Computing and Data Science, Fujian University of Technology, Fuzhou, 350118, Fujian, China

  7. Context-Constrained Transfer Learning for Tabular Foundation Models via Data Distillation

    Jul 6, 2026Yijun Lin, Sai LiTabular Foundation ModelsDataset Distillation

    Renmin University of China · Tsinghua University

  8. Transferability Between Understanding and Generation in Unified Multimodal Models

    Jul 5, 2026Jiwon Kang, Heeji Yoon, Jaewoo Jung +5Unified Multimodal ModelsMultimodal Generation

    KAIST AI, South Korea · Blynx, South Korea · Trillionlabs, South Korea

  9. Topology-Driven Transferability Estimation for 3D Medical Vision Foundation Models

    Jul 5, 2026Jiaqi Tang, Shaoyang Zhang, Fandong Zhang +3Medical Imaging Foundation Models3D Medical Imaging

    National Institute of Health Data Science, Peking University, Beijing, China · Institute of Medical Technology, Peking University, Beijing, China · State Key Laboratory of General Artificial Intelligence, Peking University, Beijing, China +2

  10. From General Actions to Domain-Specific Monitoring: Prior-Adaptive Transfer for Skeleton-Based Action Recognition

    Jul 3, 2026Hao Wang, Di Yang, Jiangtao WangSkeleton-Based Action RecognitionDataset Pruning

    University of Science and Technology of China

  11. Silicon Sampling via Cross-Survey Transfer

    Jul 3, 2026Chan-Tung Ku, Chan Hsu, Pei-Cing Huang +3LLM EvaluationTransfer Learning

    Department of Information Management National Sun Yat-sen University Kaohsiung, Taiwan · Institute of Political Science National Sun Yat-sen University Kaohsiung, Taiwan · Graduate Institute of Library and Information Science National Chung Hsing University Taichung, Taiwan

  12. Do ECG Foundation Models Transfer to Rare Cardiac Diseases? Evidence from Brugada Syndrome Detection

    Jul 3, 2026Beatrice Zanchi, Giuliana Monachino, Alvise Dei Rossi +4Domain GeneralizationElectrocardiogram Foundation Models

    University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, Department of Innovative Technologies, Via La Santa 1, Lugano, 6900, Ticino, Switzerland · University of Zurich, Department of Quantitative Biomedicine, Winterthurerstrasse 190, Zurich, 8057, Zurich, Switzerland · Neurocenter of Southern Switzerland, Ente Ospedaliero Cantonale, Movement Disorder Research Group, Neurology Department, Via Tesserete 46, Lugano, 6900, Ticino, Switzerland +5

  13. Transfer Learning in High-dimensional Ising Models

    Jul 3, 2026Joonho Kim, Seyoung ParkGraph Structure LearningIsing Model

    Kim Jaechul Graduate School of Artificial Intelligence, KAIST, Seoul, Republic of Korea · Department of Statistics and Data Science, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

  14. Towards transferable lightweight neuromorphic computing through a model-free temporal-switch framework

    Jul 1, 2026Zefeng Zhang, Chao Li, Siyao Chen +5Reservoir ComputingTransfer Learning

    State Key Laboratory of Integrated Chips and Systems, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China. · Research Institute of Intelligent Complex Systems, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China. · Frontier Institute of Chip and System, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China. +3

  15. A Transferable Learned Temporal Prior for Transmission Reconstruction and Decision-Relevant Uncertainty in Real Outbreak Labels

    Jun 29, 2026Md Ahsan KarimUncertainty QuantificationTemporal Link Prediction

    Department of Computer Science and Engineering, National Institute of Textile Engineering and Research (NITER) Nayarhat, Savar, Dhaka-1350, Bangladesh

  16. Unveiling Transferability in Trajectory Prediction via Latent Scene Embeddings

    Jun 29, 2026Theodor Westny, David Axelsson, Björn Olofsson +1Representational Similarity AnalysisMulti-Agent Trajectory Prediction

    Division of Vehicular Systems, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden · Department of Automatic Control, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

  17. GPC: Large-Scale Generative Pretraining for Transferable Motor Control

    Jun 28, 2026Yi Shi, Yifeng Jiang, Chen Tessler +1RL ControlHuman Motion Generation

    Simon Fraser University, Canada and NVIDIA, USA · NVIDIA, USA · Simon Fraser University, Canada and NVIDIA, Canada

  18. Physics-Informed Neural Network with Transfer Learning for State Estimation in Lithium-Ion Batteries using the Single Particle Model with Electrolyte

    Jun 26, 2026Gift Modekwe, Qiugang LuPDE Surrogate ModelingTransfer Learning

    Department of Chemical Engineering, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA

  19. TRUST: Efficient Abdominal Trauma Recognition via Image-to-Ultrasound-Video Transfer Learning

    Jun 26, 2026Enguang Wang, Hao Zhou, Shuo Gao +2Medical DiagnosisUltrasound Imaging

    School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China · Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Biomaterials and Devices, Southeast University, Nanjing, China · State Key Laboratory of Digital Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China +1

  20. A Multi-Fidelity Convolutional Autoencoder-Transfer Learning Framework for Guided-Wave-Based Damage Diagnosis Using Large Simulated and Limited Experimental Datasets

    Jun 25, 2026Santosh Kapuria, AbhishekConvolutional AutoencoderTransfer Learning

    Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, 110016, Delhi, India

  21. The Geometry of Updates: Fisher Alignment at Vocabulary Scale

    Jun 25, 2026John SweeneyTask Transferability EstimationTransfer Learning

    Sideplane AI

  22. Efficient foundation decoders for fault-tolerant quantum computing

    Jun 25, 2026Ge Yan, Shanchuan Li, Shiyi Xiao +4Neural DecodingQuantum Error Correction

    College of Computing and Data Science, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore · Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Koganei, Tokyo, Japan · School of Artificial Intelligence, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China +2

  23. Beyond Single-Source Cognitive Taskonomy:Multi-Source Task Relations through fMRI Transfer Learning

    Jun 24, 2026Junfeng Xia, Wendu Li, Mengjiao Zhang +1Task Transferability EstimationCross-Domain Transfer Learning

    Department of Biomedical Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology Shenzhen, China

  24. Naturalness Predicts but Does Not Cause Transferability in Image Encodings of Real-World Streams

    Jun 24, 2026Faruk Alpay, Baris BasaranTime Series ClassificationTransfer Learning

    Department of Computer Engineering, Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul, Turkey

  25. The Geometry of Sequential Learning: Lie-Bracket Prediction of Transfer Order

    Jun 23, 2026John SweeneyPairwise RankingCross-Domain Transfer Learning

    Sideplane AI

  26. Adaptive Machine Learning Framework for UAV Trajectory Optimization in O-RAN

    Jun 23, 2026Chenrui Sun, Swarna Bindu Chetty, Gianluca Fontanesi +3Trajectory OptimizationAdaptive Model Routing

    the school of Physics, Engineering and Technology, University of York, United Kingdom · Radio Systems Research, Nokia Bell Labs, Stuttgart, Germany · the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom +1

  27. Machine Learning Modeling for Real-Time Melt Pool Monitoring in Laser Powder Bed Fusion Additive Manufacturing: A Hybrid Approach

    Jun 22, 2026Inioluwa Emmanuel, Zhuo Yang, Ho Yeung +1Industrial Anomaly DetectionTransfer Learning

    Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Florida State University Tallahassee, FL · National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, Maryland

  28. DSSCNet: A Transfer Learning Framework for Cross-Corpus Dysarthric Speech Severity Classification

    Jun 20, 2026Arnab Kumar Roy, Hemant Kumar Kathania, Paban Sapkota +2Speech ProcessingTransfer Learning

    Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology, India. · Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, National Institute of Technology Sikkim, India. · Signal Analysis and Interpretation Laboratory (SAIL), University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA.

  29. Decoupling the Declarative from the Procedural in Vision-Language-Action Models

    Jun 19, 2026Nikolaos Tsagkas, Andreas Sochopoulos, Chris Xiaoxuan Lu +2Robotic ManipulationTransfer Learning

    University of Edinburgh · UCL · Samsung AI Center - Cambridge

  30. Universal Encoders for Modular Relational Deep Learning

    Jun 19, 2026Jakub Peleška, Gustav ŠírRelational Foundation ModelsTabular Foundation Models

    Czech Technical University in Prague, Karlovo náměstí 13, Prague, 121 35, Czechia