Joint Semantic Token Selection and Prompt Optimization for Interpretable Prompt Learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Wang, Yating, Zhao, Yaqi, Gong, Yongshun, Yin, Yilong, Sun, Haoliang
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Wang, Yating
Zhao, Yaqi
Gong, Yongshun
Yin, Yilong
Sun, Haoliang
author_facet Wang, Yating
Zhao, Yaqi
Gong, Yongshun
Yin, Yilong
Sun, Haoliang
contents Vision-language models such as CLIP achieve strong visual-textual alignment, but often suffer from overfitting and limited interpretability when adapted through continuous prompt learning. While discrete prompt optimization improves interpretability, it usually depends on large external models, leading to high computational costs and limited scalability. In this paper, we propose Interpretable Prompt Learning (IPL), a hybrid framework that alternates between discrete semantic token selection and continuous prompt optimization. Specifically, IPL formulates semantic token selection as an approximate submodular optimization problem, encouraging tokens that are both human-understandable and semantically diverse. It further adopts an alternating optimization strategy to integrate discrete token selection with continuous prompt tuning, improving interpretability while preserving adaptability to downstream tasks. Our framework is plug-and-play, allowing seamless integration with existing prompt learning methods. Extensive experiments on multiple benchmarks show that IPL consistently improves both interpretability and accuracy across five representative prompt learning methods, providing an effective and scalable extension to existing frameworks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_04425
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Joint Semantic Token Selection and Prompt Optimization for Interpretable Prompt Learning
Wang, Yating
Zhao, Yaqi
Gong, Yongshun
Yin, Yilong
Sun, Haoliang
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Vision-language models such as CLIP achieve strong visual-textual alignment, but often suffer from overfitting and limited interpretability when adapted through continuous prompt learning. While discrete prompt optimization improves interpretability, it usually depends on large external models, leading to high computational costs and limited scalability. In this paper, we propose Interpretable Prompt Learning (IPL), a hybrid framework that alternates between discrete semantic token selection and continuous prompt optimization. Specifically, IPL formulates semantic token selection as an approximate submodular optimization problem, encouraging tokens that are both human-understandable and semantically diverse. It further adopts an alternating optimization strategy to integrate discrete token selection with continuous prompt tuning, improving interpretability while preserving adaptability to downstream tasks. Our framework is plug-and-play, allowing seamless integration with existing prompt learning methods. Extensive experiments on multiple benchmarks show that IPL consistently improves both interpretability and accuracy across five representative prompt learning methods, providing an effective and scalable extension to existing frameworks.
title Joint Semantic Token Selection and Prompt Optimization for Interpretable Prompt Learning
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.04425