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Main Authors: Hazimeh, Adam, Favero, Alessandro, Frossard, Pascal
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.14569
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author Hazimeh, Adam
Favero, Alessandro
Frossard, Pascal
author_facet Hazimeh, Adam
Favero, Alessandro
Frossard, Pascal
contents Task arithmetic has recently emerged as a promising method for editing pre-trained \textit{open-vocabulary} models, offering a cost-effective alternative to standard multi-task fine-tuning. However, despite the abundance of \textit{closed-vocabulary} models that are not pre-trained with language supervision, applying task arithmetic to these models remains unexplored. In this paper, we deploy and study task addition in closed-vocabulary image classification models. We consider different pre-training schemes and find that \textit{weight disentanglement} -- the property enabling task arithmetic -- is a general consequence of pre-training, as it appears in different pre-trained closed-vocabulary models. In fact, we find that pre-trained closed-vocabulary vision transformers can also be edited with task arithmetic, achieving high task addition performance and enabling the efficient deployment of multi-task models. Finally, we demonstrate that simple linear probing is a competitive baseline to task addition. Overall, our findings expand the applicability of task arithmetic to a broader class of pre-trained models and open the way for more efficient use of pre-trained models in diverse settings.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_14569
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publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Task Addition and Weight Disentanglement in Closed-Vocabulary Models
Hazimeh, Adam
Favero, Alessandro
Frossard, Pascal
Machine Learning
Task arithmetic has recently emerged as a promising method for editing pre-trained \textit{open-vocabulary} models, offering a cost-effective alternative to standard multi-task fine-tuning. However, despite the abundance of \textit{closed-vocabulary} models that are not pre-trained with language supervision, applying task arithmetic to these models remains unexplored. In this paper, we deploy and study task addition in closed-vocabulary image classification models. We consider different pre-training schemes and find that \textit{weight disentanglement} -- the property enabling task arithmetic -- is a general consequence of pre-training, as it appears in different pre-trained closed-vocabulary models. In fact, we find that pre-trained closed-vocabulary vision transformers can also be edited with task arithmetic, achieving high task addition performance and enabling the efficient deployment of multi-task models. Finally, we demonstrate that simple linear probing is a competitive baseline to task addition. Overall, our findings expand the applicability of task arithmetic to a broader class of pre-trained models and open the way for more efficient use of pre-trained models in diverse settings.
title Task Addition and Weight Disentanglement in Closed-Vocabulary Models
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.14569