# Improving Forward Compatibility in Class Incremental Learning by Increasing Representation Rank and Feature Richness

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.15517 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.15517/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 25 of its 41 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 Mar 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 25 of 25)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [A Simple Framework for Contrastive Learning of Visual Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.05709/) (2020)
- [Distilling the Knowledge in a Neural Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.02531/) (2015)
- [Overcoming catastrophic forgetting in neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.00796/) (2016)
- [Auto-Encoding Variational Bayes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1312.6114/) (2013)
- [Learning without Forgetting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.09282/) (2016)
- [iCaRL: Incremental Classifier and Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.07725/) (2016)
- [Memory Aware Synapses: Learning what (not) to forget](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.09601/) (2017)
- [Riemannian Walk for Incremental Learning: Understanding Forgetting and Intransigence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.10112/) (2018)
- [Large Scale Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.13260/) (2019)
- [Deep Neural Networks as Gaussian Processes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.00165/) (2017)
- [End-to-End Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.09536/) (2018)
- [Class-incremental learning: survey and performance evaluation on image classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.15277/) (2020)
- [DER: Dynamically Expandable Representation for Class Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.16788/) (2021)
- [FOSTER: Feature Boosting and Compression for Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.04662/) (2022)
- [Mnemonics Training: Multi-Class Incremental Learning without Forgetting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.10211/) (2020)
- [Class-Incremental Learning: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.03648/) (2023)
- [Free Lunch for Few-shot Learning: Distribution Calibration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.06395/) (2021)
- [RankMe: Assessing the downstream performance of pretrained self-supervised representations by their rank](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02885/) (2022)
- [Tensor Programs I: Wide Feedforward or Recurrent Neural Networks of Any Architecture are Gaussian Processes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.12478/) (2019)
- [Vision Transformer for Small-Size Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.13492/) (2021)
- [Essentials for Class Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09517/) (2021)
- [Mimicking the Oracle: An Initial Phase Decorrelation Approach for Class Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.04731/) (2021)
- [Selecting the number of principal components: estimation of the true rank of a noisy matrix](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1410.8260/) (2014)
- [VNE: An Effective Method for Improving Deep Representation by Manipulating Eigenvalue Distribution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.01434/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [RecycleLoRA: Rank-Revealing QR-Based Dual-LoRA Subspace Adaptation for Domain Generalized Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.28142/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Class Incremental Learning (CIL) constitutes a pivotal subfield within continual learning, aimed at enabling models to progressively learn new classification tasks while retaining knowledge obtained from prior tasks. Although previous studies have predominantly focused on backward compatible approaches to mitigate catastrophic forgetting, recent investigations have introduced forward compatible methods to enhance performance on novel tasks and complement existing backward compatible methods. In this study, we introduce an effective-Rank based Feature Richness enhancement (RFR) method, designed for improving forward compatibility. Specifically, this method increases the effective rank of representations during the base session, thereby facilitating the incorporation of more informative features pertinent to unseen novel tasks. Consequently, RFR achieves dual objectives in backward and forward compatibility: minimizing feature extractor modifications and enhancing novel task performance, respectively. To validate the efficacy of our approach, we establish a theoretical connection between effective rank and the Shannon entropy of representations. Subsequently, we conduct comprehensive experiments by integrating RFR into eleven well-known CIL methods. Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in enhancing novel-task performance while mitigating catastrophic forgetting. Furthermore, our method notably improves the average incremental accuracy across all eleven cases examined.