# Continual Zero-Shot Learning through Semantically Guided Generative Random Walks

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.12366 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.12366/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 41 of its 70 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Aug 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 41)

- [Overcoming catastrophic forgetting in neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.00796/) (2016)
- [Learning without Forgetting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.09282/) (2016)
- [Continual Learning with Deep Generative Replay](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.08690/) (2017)
- [Memory Aware Synapses: Learning what (not) to forget](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.09601/) (2017)
- [Efficient Lifelong Learning with A-GEM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.00420/) (2018)
- [Zero-Shot Learning -- A Comprehensive Evaluation of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.00600/) (2017)
- [Feature Generating Networks for Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.00981/) (2017)
- [Semantic Drift Compensation for Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.00440/) (2020)
- [Evaluation of Output Embeddings for Fine-Grained Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.8403/) (2014)
- [Label-Embedding for Image Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.08677/) (2015)
- [f-VAEGAN-D2: A Feature Generating Framework for Any-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.10132/) (2019)
- [A Review of Generalized Zero-Shot Learning Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.08641/) (2020)
- [Learning a Deep Embedding Model for Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.05088/) (2016)
- [An Empirical Study and Analysis of Generalized Zero-Shot Learning for Object Recognition in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1605.04253/) (2016)
- [Adversarial Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.09553/) (2020)
- [Semantic Autoencoder for Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.08345/) (2017)
- [Latent Embeddings for Zero-shot Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.08895/) (2016)
- [Synthesized Classifiers for Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1603.00550/) (2016)
- [CAN: Creative Adversarial Networks, Generating "Art" by Learning About Styles and Deviating from Style Norms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.07068/) (2017)
- [A Generative Adversarial Approach for Zero-Shot Learning from Noisy Texts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.01381/) (2017)
- [The CLEAR Benchmark: Continual LEArning on Real-World Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.06289/) (2022)
- [Multi-modal Cycle-consistent Generalized Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.00136/) (2018)
- [Leveraging the Invariant Side of Generative Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.04092/) (2019)
- [Leveraging Seen and Unseen Semantic Relationships for Generative Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.09549/) (2020)
- [Link the head to the "beak": Zero Shot Learning from Noisy Text Description at Part Precision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.01148/) (2017)
- [Less is more: zero-shot learning from online textual documents with noise suppression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1604.01146/) (2016)
- [Creativity Inspired Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.01109/) (2019)
- [GDPP: Learning Diverse Generations Using Determinantal Point Process](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.00068/) (2018)
- [DeSIGN: Design Inspiration from Generative Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.00921/) (2018)
- [Semantically Aligned Bias Reducing Zero Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.07659/) (2019)

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

- [Continual Learning Improves Zero-Shot Action Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10497/) (2024)
- [Continual-MEGA: A Large-scale Benchmark for Generalizable Continual Anomaly Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.00956/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Learning novel concepts, remembering previous knowledge, and adapting it to future tasks occur simultaneously throughout a human's lifetime. To model such comprehensive abilities, continual zero-shot learning (CZSL) has recently been introduced. However, most existing methods overused unseen semantic information that may not be continually accessible in realistic settings. In this paper, we address the challenge of continual zero-shot learning where unseen information is not provided during training, by leveraging generative modeling. The heart of the generative-based methods is to learn quality representations from seen classes to improve the generative understanding of the unseen visual space. Motivated by this, we introduce generalization-bound tools and provide the first theoretical explanation for the benefits of generative modeling to CZSL tasks. Guided by the theoretical analysis, we then propose our learning algorithm that employs a novel semantically guided Generative Random Walk (GRW) loss. The GRW loss augments the training by continually encouraging the model to generate realistic and characterized samples to represent the unseen space. Our algorithm achieves state-of-the-art performance on AWA1, AWA2, CUB, and SUN datasets, surpassing existing CZSL methods by 3-7%. The code has been made available here urlhttps://github.com/wx-zhang/IGCZSL