# NormAUG: Normalization-guided Augmentation for Domain Generalization

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.13492 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.13492/

## Key facts

- Cited by 8 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 50 of its 66 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Jul 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 50)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Batch Normalization: Accelerating Deep Network Training by Reducing Internal Covariate Shift](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.03167/) (2015)
- [mixup: Beyond Empirical Risk Minimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.09412/) (2017)
- [Model-Agnostic Meta-Learning for Fast Adaptation of Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.03400/) (2017)
- [Arbitrary Style Transfer in Real-time with Adaptive Instance Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06868/) (2017)
- [Unsupervised Domain Adaptation by Backpropagation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.7495/) (2014)
- [Moment Matching for Multi-Source Domain Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.01754/) (2018)
- [Deep Hashing Network for Unsupervised Domain Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.07522/) (2017)
- [Deeper, Broader and Artier Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.03077/) (2017)
- [Generalizing to Unseen Domains: A Survey on Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.03097/) (2021)
- [Learning to Generalize: Meta-Learning for Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.03463/) (2017)
- [Domain Generalization with MixStyle](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.02008/) (2021)
- [Domain Generalization by Solving Jigsaw Puzzles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.06864/) (2019)
- [SWAD: Domain Generalization by Seeking Flat Minima](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.08604/) (2021)
- [Self-Challenging Improves Cross-Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.02454/) (2020)
- [Domain Generalization via Model-Agnostic Learning of Semantic Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.13580/) (2019)
- [Learning to Generate Novel Domains for Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.03304/) (2020)
- [A Fourier-based Framework for Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.11120/) (2021)
- [Sliced Wasserstein Discrepancy for Unsupervised Domain Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.04064/) (2019)
- [Deep Domain-Adversarial Image Generation for Domain Generalisation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.06054/) (2020)
- [SelfReg: Self-supervised Contrastive Regularization for Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.09841/) (2021)
- [Fishr: Invariant Gradient Variances for Out-of-Distribution Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.02934/) (2021)
- [Domain Generalization by Marginal Transfer Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.07910/) (2017)
- [Domain Generalization Using a Mixture of Multiple Latent Domains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.07661/) (2019)
- [Learning to Diversify for Single Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.11726/) (2021)
- [Learning to Optimize Domain Specific Normalization for Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.04275/) (2019)
- [Domain Adaptive Ensemble Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.07325/) (2020)
- [Domain Generalization via Conditional Invariant Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.08479/) (2018)
- [Causality Inspired Representation Learning for Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.14237/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [Learn to Preserve and Diversify: Parameter-Efficient Group with Orthogonal Regularization for Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.15085/) (2024)
- [BatStyler: Advancing Multi-category Style Generation for Source-free Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.01109/) (2025)
- [SETA: Semantic-Aware Token Augmentation for Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11792/) (2024)
- [Prompt-Driven Simulation with Feature Perturbation for Cross-Domain Few-Shot Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.01348/) (2026)
- [Casual Inference via Style Bias Deconfounding for Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.16852/) (2025)
- [Dual encoding feature filtering generalized attention UNET for retinal vessel segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.02312/) (2025)
- [Multi-Granularity Feature Calibration via VFM for Domain Generalized Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.03007/) (2025)
- [Beyond Seen Bounds: Class-Centric Polarization for Single-Domain Generalized Deep Metric Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.09121/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Deep learning has made significant advancements in supervised learning. However, models trained in this setting often face challenges due to domain shift between training and test sets, resulting in a significant drop in performance during testing. To address this issue, several domain generalization methods have been developed to learn robust and domain-invariant features from multiple training domains that can generalize well to unseen test domains. Data augmentation plays a crucial role in achieving this goal by enhancing the diversity of the training data. In this paper, inspired by the observation that normalizing an image with different statistics generated by different batches with various domains can perturb its feature, we propose a simple yet effective method called NormAUG (Normalization-guided Augmentation). Our method includes two paths: the main path and the auxiliary (augmented) path. During training, the auxiliary path includes multiple sub-paths, each corresponding to batch normalization for a single domain or a random combination of multiple domains. This introduces diverse information at the feature level and improves the generalization of the main path. Moreover, our NormAUG method effectively reduces the existing upper boundary for generalization based on theoretical perspectives. During the test stage, we leverage an ensemble strategy to combine the predictions from the auxiliary path of our model, further boosting performance. Extensive experiments are conducted on multiple benchmark datasets to validate the effectiveness of our proposed method.
