Does Prior Data Matter? Exploring Joint Training in the Context of Few-Shot Class-Incremental Learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Kim, Shiwon, Hwang, Dongjun, Woo, Sungwon, Singh, Rita
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Kim, Shiwon
Hwang, Dongjun
Woo, Sungwon
Singh, Rita
author_facet Kim, Shiwon
Hwang, Dongjun
Woo, Sungwon
Singh, Rita
contents Class-incremental learning (CIL) aims to adapt to continuously emerging new classes while preserving knowledge of previously learned ones. Few-shot class-incremental learning (FSCIL) presents a greater challenge that requires the model to learn new classes from only a limited number of samples per class. While incremental learning typically assumes restricted access to past data, it often remains available in many real-world scenarios. This raises a practical question: should one retrain the model on the full dataset (i.e., joint training), or continue updating it solely with new data? In CIL, joint training is considered an ideal benchmark that provides a reference for evaluating the trade-offs between performance and computational cost. However, in FSCIL, joint training becomes less reliable due to severe imbalance between base and incremental classes. This results in the absence of a practical baseline, making it unclear which strategy is preferable for practitioners. To this end, we revisit joint training in the context of FSCIL by incorporating imbalance mitigation techniques, and suggest a new imbalance-aware joint training benchmark for FSCIL. We then conduct extensive comparisons between this benchmark and FSCIL methods to analyze which approach is most suitable when prior data is accessible. Our analysis offers realistic insights and guidance for selecting training strategies in real-world FSCIL scenarios. Code is available at: https://github.com/shiwonkim/Joint_FSCIL
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_10003
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Does Prior Data Matter? Exploring Joint Training in the Context of Few-Shot Class-Incremental Learning
Kim, Shiwon
Hwang, Dongjun
Woo, Sungwon
Singh, Rita
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Class-incremental learning (CIL) aims to adapt to continuously emerging new classes while preserving knowledge of previously learned ones. Few-shot class-incremental learning (FSCIL) presents a greater challenge that requires the model to learn new classes from only a limited number of samples per class. While incremental learning typically assumes restricted access to past data, it often remains available in many real-world scenarios. This raises a practical question: should one retrain the model on the full dataset (i.e., joint training), or continue updating it solely with new data? In CIL, joint training is considered an ideal benchmark that provides a reference for evaluating the trade-offs between performance and computational cost. However, in FSCIL, joint training becomes less reliable due to severe imbalance between base and incremental classes. This results in the absence of a practical baseline, making it unclear which strategy is preferable for practitioners. To this end, we revisit joint training in the context of FSCIL by incorporating imbalance mitigation techniques, and suggest a new imbalance-aware joint training benchmark for FSCIL. We then conduct extensive comparisons between this benchmark and FSCIL methods to analyze which approach is most suitable when prior data is accessible. Our analysis offers realistic insights and guidance for selecting training strategies in real-world FSCIL scenarios. Code is available at: https://github.com/shiwonkim/Joint_FSCIL
title Does Prior Data Matter? Exploring Joint Training in the Context of Few-Shot Class-Incremental Learning
topic Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.10003