# SEER-ZSL: Semantic Encoder-Enhanced Representations for Generalized Zero-Shot Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.13100 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.13100/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 57 of its 86 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 20 Dec 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 57)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Distributed Representations of Words and Phrases and their Compositionality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1310.4546/) (2013)
- [Improved Training of Wasserstein GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.00028/) (2017)
- [Learning to Compare: Relation Network for Few-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.06025/) (2017)
- [Improved Precision and Recall Metric for Assessing Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.06991/) (2019)
- [Zero-Shot Learning -- A Comprehensive Evaluation of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.00600/) (2017)
- [A Neural Algorithm of Artistic Style](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1508.06576/) (2015)
- [Towards Principled Methods for Training Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1701.04862/) (2017)
- [Autoencoding beyond pixels using a learned similarity metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.09300/) (2015)
- [Diverse Image-to-Image Translation via Disentangled Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.00948/) (2018)
- [Feature Generating Networks for Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.00981/) (2017)
- [Zero-Shot Learning -- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.04394/) (2017)
- [Zero-Shot Learning Through Cross-Modal Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1301.3666/) (2013)
- [Hyperbolic Image Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.02239/) (2019)
- [Generalized Zero- and Few-Shot Learning via Aligned Variational Autoencoders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.01784/) (2018)
- [Variational Lossy Autoencoder](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.02731/) (2016)
- [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)
- [Neural Logic Machines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.11694/) (2019)
- [Task-Driven Modular Networks for Zero-Shot Compositional Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.05908/) (2019)
- [Contrastive Embedding for Generalized Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.16173/) (2021)
- [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)
- [Augmented CycleGAN: Learning Many-to-Many Mappings from Unpaired Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.10151/) (2018)
- [Zero-Shot Learning via Semantic Similarity Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1509.04767/) (2015)
- [Domain-aware Visual Bias Eliminating for Generalized Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.13261/) (2020)
- [Goal-Oriented Gaze Estimation for Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.03433/) (2021)
- [FREE: Feature Refinement for Generalized Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.13807/) (2021)
- [A Generative Model For Zero Shot Learning Using Conditional Variational Autoencoders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.00663/) (2017)
- [Transferable Contrastive Network for Generalized Zero-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.05832/) (2019)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Zero-Shot Learning (ZSL) presents the challenge of identifying categories not seen during training. This task is crucial in domains where it is costly, prohibited, or simply not feasible to collect training data. ZSL depends on a mapping between the visual space and available semantic information. Prior works learn a mapping between spaces that can be exploited during inference. We contend, however, that the disparity between meticulously curated semantic spaces and the inherently noisy nature of real-world data remains a substantial and unresolved challenge. In this paper, we address this by introducing a Semantic Encoder-Enhanced Representations for Zero-Shot Learning (SEER-ZSL). We propose a hybrid strategy to address the generalization gap. First, we aim to distill meaningful semantic information using a probabilistic encoder, enhancing the semantic consistency and robustness. Second, we distill the visual space by exploiting the learned data distribution through an adversarially trained generator. Finally, we align the distilled information, enabling a mapping of unseen categories onto the true data manifold. We demonstrate empirically that this approach yields a model that outperforms the state-of-the-art benchmarks in terms of both generalization and benchmarks across diverse settings with small, medium, and large datasets. The complete code is available on GitHub.
