On the Comparison between Multi-modal and Single-modal Contrastive Learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Huang, Wei, Han, Andi, Chen, Yongqiang, Cao, Yuan, Xu, Zhiqiang, Suzuki, Taiji
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Huang, Wei
Han, Andi
Chen, Yongqiang
Cao, Yuan
Xu, Zhiqiang
Suzuki, Taiji
author_facet Huang, Wei
Han, Andi
Chen, Yongqiang
Cao, Yuan
Xu, Zhiqiang
Suzuki, Taiji
contents Multi-modal contrastive learning with language supervision has presented a paradigm shift in modern machine learning. By pre-training on a web-scale dataset, multi-modal contrastive learning can learn high-quality representations that exhibit impressive robustness and transferability. Despite its empirical success, the theoretical understanding is still in its infancy, especially regarding its comparison with single-modal contrastive learning. In this work, we introduce a feature learning theory framework that provides a theoretical foundation for understanding the differences between multi-modal and single-modal contrastive learning. Based on a data generation model consisting of signal and noise, our analysis is performed on a ReLU network trained with the InfoMax objective function. Through a trajectory-based optimization analysis and generalization characterization on downstream tasks, we identify the critical factor, which is the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), that impacts the generalizability in downstream tasks of both multi-modal and single-modal contrastive learning. Through the cooperation between the two modalities, multi-modal learning can achieve better feature learning, leading to improvements in performance in downstream tasks compared to single-modal learning. Our analysis provides a unified framework that can characterize the optimization and generalization of both single-modal and multi-modal contrastive learning. Empirical experiments on both synthetic and real-world datasets further consolidate our theoretical findings.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_02837
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle On the Comparison between Multi-modal and Single-modal Contrastive Learning
Huang, Wei
Han, Andi
Chen, Yongqiang
Cao, Yuan
Xu, Zhiqiang
Suzuki, Taiji
Machine Learning
Multi-modal contrastive learning with language supervision has presented a paradigm shift in modern machine learning. By pre-training on a web-scale dataset, multi-modal contrastive learning can learn high-quality representations that exhibit impressive robustness and transferability. Despite its empirical success, the theoretical understanding is still in its infancy, especially regarding its comparison with single-modal contrastive learning. In this work, we introduce a feature learning theory framework that provides a theoretical foundation for understanding the differences between multi-modal and single-modal contrastive learning. Based on a data generation model consisting of signal and noise, our analysis is performed on a ReLU network trained with the InfoMax objective function. Through a trajectory-based optimization analysis and generalization characterization on downstream tasks, we identify the critical factor, which is the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), that impacts the generalizability in downstream tasks of both multi-modal and single-modal contrastive learning. Through the cooperation between the two modalities, multi-modal learning can achieve better feature learning, leading to improvements in performance in downstream tasks compared to single-modal learning. Our analysis provides a unified framework that can characterize the optimization and generalization of both single-modal and multi-modal contrastive learning. Empirical experiments on both synthetic and real-world datasets further consolidate our theoretical findings.
title On the Comparison between Multi-modal and Single-modal Contrastive Learning
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.02837