# Meta-free few-shot learning via representation learning with weight averaging

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.12466 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.12466/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 52 of its 82 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 26 Apr 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 52)

- [On Calibration of Modern Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.04599/) (2017)
- [Model-Agnostic Meta-Learning for Fast Adaptation of Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.03400/) (2017)
- [Prototypical Networks for Few-shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.05175/) (2017)
- [CBAM: Convolutional Block Attention Module](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.06521/) (2018)
- [Matching Networks for One Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04080/) (2016)
- [On Large-Batch Training for Deep Learning: Generalization Gap and Sharp Minima](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.04836/) (2016)
- [Averaging Weights Leads to Wider Optima and Better Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.05407/) (2018)
- [Learning to Compare: Relation Network for Few-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.06025/) (2017)
- [On First-Order Meta-Learning Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.02999/) (2018)
- [Spectrally-normalized margin bounds for neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.08498/) (2017)
- [A Closer Look at Few-shot Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.04232/) (2019)
- [Meta-Learning with Latent Embedding Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.05960/) (2018)
- [Meta-Learning with Differentiable Convex Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.03758/) (2019)
- [Meta-Learning for Semi-Supervised Few-Shot Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.00676/) (2018)
- [New insights and perspectives on the natural gradient method](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.1193/) (2014)
- [Rethinking Few-Shot Image Classification: a Good Embedding Is All You Need?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.11539/) (2020)
- [TADAM: Task dependent adaptive metric for improved few-shot learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.10123/) (2018)
- [Meta-learning with differentiable closed-form solvers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.08136/) (2018)
- [Dynamic Few-Shot Visual Learning without Forgetting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.09458/) (2018)
- [Rapid Learning or Feature Reuse? Towards Understanding the Effectiveness of MAML](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.09157/) (2019)
- [Few-Shot Learning with Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.04043/) (2017)
- [A PAC-Bayesian Approach to Spectrally-Normalized Margin Bounds for Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.09564/) (2017)
- [How to train your MAML](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.09502/) (2018)
- [Meta-Transfer Learning for Few-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.02391/) (2018)
- [A Baseline for Few-Shot Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.02729/) (2019)
- [Few-Shot Learning via Embedding Adaptation with Set-to-Set Functions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.03664/) (2018)
- [Probabilistic Model-Agnostic Meta-Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.02817/) (2018)
- [Bayesian Model-Agnostic Meta-Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.03836/) (2018)
- [Recasting Gradient-Based Meta-Learning as Hierarchical Bayes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.08930/) (2018)
- [Charting the Right Manifold: Manifold Mixup for Few-shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.12087/) (2019)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Meta-Learning with Self-Improving Momentum Target](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.05185/) (2022)
- [Logarithm-transform aided Gaussian Sampling for Few-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16337/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recent studies on few-shot classification using transfer learning pose challenges to the effectiveness and efficiency of episodic meta-learning algorithms. Transfer learning approaches are a natural alternative, but they are restricted to few-shot classification. Moreover, little attention has been on the development of probabilistic models with well-calibrated uncertainty from few-shot samples, except for some Bayesian episodic learning algorithms. To tackle the aforementioned issues, we propose a new transfer learning method to obtain accurate and reliable models for few-shot regression and classification. The resulting method does not require episodic meta-learning and is called meta-free representation learning (MFRL). MFRL first finds low-rank representation generalizing well on meta-test tasks. Given the learned representation, probabilistic linear models are fine-tuned with few-shot samples to obtain models with well-calibrated uncertainty. The proposed method not only achieves the highest accuracy on a wide range of few-shot learning benchmark datasets but also correctly quantifies the prediction uncertainty. In addition, weight averaging and temperature scaling are effective in improving the accuracy and reliability of few-shot learning in existing meta-learning algorithms with a wide range of learning paradigms and model architectures.