Zero-Shot Learning

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Zero-shot learning studies how models can handle unseen classes, tasks, domains, or settings without labeled examples for the target. Traditional visual methods align image features with attributes or text embeddings, while newer approaches use vision-language models, large language models, prompt design, generated features, and test-time adaptation. Evaluation ranges from class-recognition benchmarks such as CUB and AWA2 to video localization, cross-domain transfer, and embodied tasks, often testing both unseen-class performance and retention of seen classes. A central tension is that broad transfer can be fragile: models may favor familiar classes, react strongly to prompt wording, or fail under distribution shift, while adaptation can improve results but weaken the claim of learning without target-specific training.

Latest papers

184 papers17 papers in the last four weeks, up 55% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

MedJev: Evaluating Zero-Shot System-One Decision Making in Medicine
Oct 26, 2026Simon A. Lee, Jiahang Sha, Moonseong Jeong +2Clinical Language Model Evaluation Zero-Shot Learning
UCLA Computational Medicine · UCLA Neurosurgery
Robot Generalization Beyond Volume: The Diversity Path via Zero-Shot Capabilities
Oct 21, 2026Rafael Felix, Flavia YanaseRobot Policy Generalization Robot Learning
runibiLABS
Compositionality with Primitives: A Unified View from Euclidean to Hyperbolic Vision-Language Models
Oct 21, 2026Puru Vaish, Meelad Dashti, Christoph Brune +3Compositional Reasoning in VLMs Zero-Shot Learning
University of Twente, The Netherlands · Politecnico di Torino, Italy · University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Balancing Foundation Models and Trait-Specific Learning for Forehead-Crease Recognition
Oct 21, 2026Geetanjali Sharma, Aryan Jain, Dev Nagaich +2Biometric Identification Zero-Shot Learning
Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, India · SAFE Center, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Gjøvik, Norway
HyperTaxa: Multiscale Genome Representations for Generalized Microbial Taxonomic Inference
Oct 19, 2026Akash Rao, Sushim Gupta, Vishalini Ramnath +2Bioinformatics Representation Learning
CSSE Department, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA · Oklahoma Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA
DiffGround: Semantic Difference-Guided Zero-Shot Video Question Grounding
Oct 18, 2026Cheng-Han Lee, Amir Salimi, Hsiang-Wei Huang +3Temporal Video Grounding Video QA
The University of Texas at Austin, United States · Amazon , United States
LEMON: Equivariant Learning over Attention Maps for Zero-Shot Misbehavior Monitoring on New LLMs
Oct 15, 2026Guy Bar-Shalom, Mor Geva, Fabrizio Frasca +1LLM Safety Monitoring LLM Auditing
Technion · Tel Aviv University · Technion, NVIDIA
Pre-Trained Language Models as Zero-Shot Tools for Social Science Research
Oct 13, 2026Noah DasanaikeEntity Resolution Zero-Shot Learning
PhD Candidate, Department of Government, Harvard University.
Benchmarking Multimodal Large Language Models for Zero-Shot Human-Object Interaction
Oct 13, 2026Oriol Rabasseda, Zenjie Li, Kamal Nasrollahi +1Human-Object Interaction Multimodal Large Language Models
Milestone Systems A/S, Banemarksvej 50, 2605 Broendby, Denmark · Universitat de Barcelona, Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes 585, 08007, Barcelona, Spain · Aalborg University, Rendsburggade 14, 9000 Aalborg, Denmark
From Simulated Fluids to Living Tissue: Zero-Shot Foundation Model Transfer to Perturbed Embryos
Oct 12, 2026Louisa Cornelis, Haewon Jeong, Irina Espejo +1Physical Foundation Models Transfer Learning
UC Santa Barbara · PolymathicAI · New York University +1
SIMPLE: Semantic Structure-Aligned Prompt Learning for Open-Vocabulary Audio-Visual Event Localization
Oct 11, 2026Hanyu Xuan, Haoran Xu, Min Yin +7Audio-Visual Understanding Prompt Learning
the School of Big Data and Statistics, Anhui University, Hefei 230039, China. · the School of Information Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China. · the Shenzhen University Medical School, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China +4
From Global Alignment to Local Grounding: Zero-Shot Chinese Character Recognition with Radical Verification
Oct 7, 2026Yu-Heng Shih, Bing-Chen Wu, Tsz-To Wong +6Zero-Shot Learning Optical Character Recognition
National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan · E.SUN Financial Holding Co., Ltd., Taiwan · National Kaohsiung Normal University, Taiwan
Breaking Bureaucracy: Evaluating open-source LLMs for legal document review
Oct 5, 2026Farrukh Baratov, Niki van Stein, Suzan VerberneZero-Shot Learning Legal NLP
Leiden University Leiden, the Netherlands
Atomic Visual Entailment: Enhancing Zero-Shot Vision-Language Reasoning through Atomic Fact Decomposition and Learned Selection
Oct 4, 2026Nallathambi Vethiappan, Derya Soydaner, Gijs WijnholdsZero-Shot Learning VLM Reasoning
Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS), Leiden University, The Netherlands
Zero-Shot Time-Series Question Answering via Decoupled Perception and Reasoning
Oct 4, 2026Jing Xie, Haochen Yuan, Yunbo WangTime Series QA Time Series Reasoning
MoE Key Lab of Artificial Intelligence, Institute of AI, School of Computer Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Author Representation Strategies for Zero-Shot Authorship Attribution: A Comparative Study of LLM-Based and Embedding-Based Approaches
Oct 2, 2026Nudrat Habib, Tosin Adewumi, Sana Sabah Al-Azzawi +2Authorship Attribution Representation Learning
Luleå University of Technology, Sweden
Retargeting Motions to Diverse Skeletons via Learnable Flattening
Sep 29, 2026Kia-Jüng Yang, Fabian H. Sinz, Paweł A. PierzchlewiczGraph Positional Encoding Zero-Shot Learning
Institute of Computer Science, University of Göttingen · Campus Institute Data Science, University Göttingen · Pantomim P.S.A
ALICE: In-context, Zero-shot, Mutual Information Estimation
Sep 28, 2026Giulio Franzese, Simone Rossi, Pietro MichiardiZero-Shot Learning In-Context Learning
EURECOM, Sophia Antipolis, France
Hierarchical Response Preservation for Continual Adaptation of Zero-Shot Graph-Text Models
Sep 27, 2026Haopeng Zhang, Yuhan Wang, Yubing Su +4Class-Incremental Learning Zero-Shot Learning
School of Computer Science and Engineering, Beihang University Beijing, China · School of Electronic and Information Engineering Beihang University Beijing, China · School of Software, Beihang University Beijing, China
PETR: Prompt Ensembling with Training-free Routing for Vision-Language Models
Sep 20, 2026Weihan Cai, Hao Tan, Xinping Gao +2Zero-Shot Learning VLM Adaptation
State Key Laboratory of Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Systems, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and also with the School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China · Purple Mountain Laboratories, Nanjing, China · Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, China
ZIL: Zero-shot Image-to-LiDAR Registration
Sep 19, 2026Zijun Li, Xiaotian Sun, Xuelun Shen +6Cross-Modal Image Registration Camera-LiDAR Fusion
Xiamen University · Meta
Zero-Shot Cross-Lingual Recognition of Sign Language Handshapes
Sep 16, 2026Marcel Granero-Moya, Carolina del Corral Farrarós, Gloria Haro +2Zero-Shot Learning Sign Language Recognition
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
From Model Patterns to Abstract Semantics in Compositional Zero-Shot Learning
Sep 14, 2026Weize Li, Zhicheng Zhao, Fei SuZero-Shot Learning VLM Reasoning
Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications · Beijing Key Laboratory of Network System and Network Culture · Key Laboratory of Interactive Technology and Experience System
A statistical approach to bias in zero-shot learning: the lens of handwriting recognition
Sep 9, 2026Clarence Chew, Gim Siang Chia, Sukalpa Chanda +2Zero-Shot Learning
Department of Mathematics National University of Singapore · Dept of Comp Sc & Comm Østfold University College · Statistics and Mathematics Unit Indian Statistical Institute
AirAnchor: Bridging Local and Global Spatial Information for Zero-Shot Aerial Vision-and-Language Navigation
Sep 8, 2026Shanwei Fan, Bin Zhang, Zhiwei Xu +4Zero-Shot Learning UAV Navigation
National Key Laboratory of Cognition and Decision Intelligence for Complex Systems, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China · School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China · School of Artificial Intelligence, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong, China
Are Image Generators Zero-Shot Perceivers? A Rigorous Evaluation
Sep 7, 2026Shangzhe Di, Zhaokai Wang, Weidi XieDistribution Shift Robustness Zero-Shot Learning
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
FineHOI: Part-Aware Dense Representations for Zero-Shot Human-Object Interaction Detection
Sep 5, 2026Francesco Tonini, Lorenzo Vaquero, Mohammad Mahdi Derakhshani +3Human-Object Interaction Zero-Shot Learning
University of Trento Trento, Italy · Fondazione Bruno Kessler Trento, Italy · University of Amsterdam Amsterdam, The Netherlands +1
Out-of-Distribution Generalisation with Sequence Models in Offline Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning
Sep 3, 2026Oussama Hidaoui, Omer Ebead, Ulrich Armel Mbou Sob +14Zero-Shot Learning Reinforcement Learning
InstaDeep · AIMS · Stellenbosch University
Evaluating Large Language Models for Forced Outage Risk Prediction: Benefits and Comparison to Machine Learning
Sep 2, 2026Christos Petridis, Zoran Obradovic, Mladen KezunovicLLM Evaluation Zero-Shot Learning
Temple University · Texas A&M University
GVS5H: Zero-Shot Self-Orchestration with Ledger-Based Control for Improved LLM Coding Performance
Aug 27, 2026Victor Gao, Vida Khosrowshahi, Ali Khosrowshahi +4Zero-Shot Learning Multi-Agent LLM Systems
Sang Won · Persis Capital Inc.

Oct 26, 2026J/K move · Enter open · S save

MedJev: Evaluating Zero-Shot System-One Decision Making in Medicine

Simon A. Lee, Jiahang Sha, Moonseong Jeong, Yunbei Pan+1

UCLA Computational Medicine · UCLA Neurosurgery

Clinical Language Model Evaluation Zero-Shot Learning Clinical Outcome Prediction Model Calibration

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System One decision models such as Jev answer structured questions in a single forward pass without generating text, offering fast and computationally efficient clinical decision support. We evaluate MedJev, an open System One model that runs locally on a laptop, across ten medical benchmarks spanning medical knowledge, diagnosis, and patient level prediction using MIMIC IV and MIMIC IV ED. We compare MedJev against zero shot LLM baselines, published GPT results, and supervised models. MedJev achieves accuracies of 72.5 percent on MedQA, 75.4 percent on USMLE, and 80.1 percent on NEJM, approaching published GPT 4 performance while maintaining well calibrated confidence estimates (ECE 0.028 to 0.063). On patient level tasks, MedJev achieves an AUROC of 0.926 for In Hospital Mortality, exceeding XGBoost (0.902), but underperforms supervised models on operational outcomes such as ED Triage Admission (0.745 vs. 0.809). Patient level predictions also exhibit substantial miscalibration (In Hospital Mortality ECE 0.286). We introduce a lightweight, two parameter recalibration method that adapts predictions to local patient populations using 50 to 200 labeled examples, reducing ECE to 0.007. Our findings establish open System One models as a promising zero shot baseline for medical AI, combining competitive predictive performance with low computational cost and efficient local calibration. We release our code and evaluation harness to support future research.