Exploring the Integration of Key-Value Attention Into Pure and Hybrid Transformers for Semantic Segmentation

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Hwa, DeShin, Holmes, Tobias, Drechsler, Klaus
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Hwa, DeShin
Holmes, Tobias
Drechsler, Klaus
author_facet Hwa, DeShin
Holmes, Tobias
Drechsler, Klaus
contents While CNNs were long considered state of the art for image processing, the introduction of Transformer architectures has challenged this position. While achieving excellent results in image classification and segmentation, Transformers remain inherently reliant on large training datasets and remain computationally expensive. A newly introduced Transformer derivative named KV Transformer shows promising results in synthetic, NLP, and image classification tasks, while reducing complexity and memory usage. This is especially conducive to use cases where local inference is required, such as medical screening applications. We endeavoured to further evaluate the merit of KV Transformers on semantic segmentation tasks, specifically in the domain of medical imaging. By directly comparing traditional and KV variants of the same base architectures, we provide further insight into the practical tradeoffs of reduced model complexity. We observe a notable reduction in parameter count and multiply accumulate operations, while achieving similar performance from most of the KV variant models when directly compared to their QKV implementation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_18862
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Exploring the Integration of Key-Value Attention Into Pure and Hybrid Transformers for Semantic Segmentation
Hwa, DeShin
Holmes, Tobias
Drechsler, Klaus
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
While CNNs were long considered state of the art for image processing, the introduction of Transformer architectures has challenged this position. While achieving excellent results in image classification and segmentation, Transformers remain inherently reliant on large training datasets and remain computationally expensive. A newly introduced Transformer derivative named KV Transformer shows promising results in synthetic, NLP, and image classification tasks, while reducing complexity and memory usage. This is especially conducive to use cases where local inference is required, such as medical screening applications. We endeavoured to further evaluate the merit of KV Transformers on semantic segmentation tasks, specifically in the domain of medical imaging. By directly comparing traditional and KV variants of the same base architectures, we provide further insight into the practical tradeoffs of reduced model complexity. We observe a notable reduction in parameter count and multiply accumulate operations, while achieving similar performance from most of the KV variant models when directly compared to their QKV implementation.
title Exploring the Integration of Key-Value Attention Into Pure and Hybrid Transformers for Semantic Segmentation
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.18862