# PLADIS: Pushing the Limits of Attention in Diffusion Models at Inference Time by Leveraging Sparsity

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.07677 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.07677/

## Key facts

- Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Diffusion foundations and sampling, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 51 of its 67 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 10 Mar 2025.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Diffusion foundations and sampling](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/diffusion-foundations-and-sampling/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 51)

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.0312/) (2014)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11487/) (2022)
- [Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12598/) (2022)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.01952/) (2023)
- [Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03206/) (2024)
- [DreamBooth: Fine Tuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Subject-Driven Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12242/) (2022)
- [Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15127/) (2023)
- [Prompt-to-Prompt Image Editing with Cross Attention Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.01626/) (2022)
- [CLIPScore: A Reference-free Evaluation Metric for Image Captioning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.08718/) (2021)
- [ImageReward: Learning and Evaluating Human Preferences for Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.05977/) (2023)
- [Pick-a-Pic: An Open Dataset of User Preferences for Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.01569/) (2023)
- [GenEval: An Object-Focused Framework for Evaluating Text-to-Image Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.11513/) (2023)
- [Human Preference Score v2: A Solid Benchmark for Evaluating Human Preferences of Text-to-Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.09341/) (2023)
- [Latent Consistency Models: Synthesizing High-Resolution Images with Few-Step Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.04378/) (2023)
- [Adversarial Diffusion Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17042/) (2023)
- [Attend-and-Excite: Attention-Based Semantic Guidance for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.13826/) (2023)
- [Improved Distribution Matching Distillation for Fast Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14867/) (2024)
- [VideoCrafter2: Overcoming Data Limitations for High-Quality Video Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.09047/) (2024)
- [Hopfield Networks is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.02217/) (2020)
- [From Softmax to Sparsemax: A Sparse Model of Attention and Multi-Label Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.02068/) (2016)
- [SANA: Efficient High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Linear Diffusion Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10629/) (2024)
- [PixArt-Sigma: Weak-to-Strong Training of Diffusion Transformer for 4K Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.04692/) (2024)
- [Guiding a Diffusion Model with a Bad Version of Itself](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.02507/) (2024)
- [SDXL-Lightning: Progressive Adversarial Diffusion Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.13929/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [Normalized Attention Guidance: Universal Negative Guidance for Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.21179/) (2025)
- [Reward Sharpness-Aware Fine-Tuning for Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.21175/) (2026)
- [Diagnosing and Correcting Concept Omission in Multimodal Diffusion Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.14270/) (2026)
- [Empty SPACE: Cross-Attention Sparsity for Concept Erasure in Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.10198/) (2026)
- [TAG: Tangential Amplifying Guidance for Hallucination-Resistant Sampling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.04533/) (2025)
- [Geometry-Aware Attention Guidance for Diffusion Models via Modern Hopfield Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.02531/) (2026)
- [Balancing Fidelity and Diversity in Diffusion Models via Symmetric Attention Decomposition: Hopfield Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.27476/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Diffusion models have shown impressive results in generating high-quality conditional samples using guidance techniques such as Classifier-Free Guidance (CFG). However, existing methods often require additional training or neural function evaluations (NFEs), making them incompatible with guidance-distilled models. Also, they rely on heuristic approaches that need identifying target layers. In this work, we propose a novel and efficient method, termed PLADIS, which boosts pre-trained models (U-Net/Transformer) by leveraging sparse attention. Specifically, we extrapolate query-key correlations using softmax and its sparse counterpart in the cross-attention layer during inference, without requiring extra training or NFEs. By leveraging the noise robustness of sparse attention, our PLADIS unleashes the latent potential of text-to-image diffusion models, enabling them to excel in areas where they once struggled with newfound effectiveness. It integrates seamlessly with guidance techniques, including guidance-distilled models. Extensive experiments show notable improvements in text alignment and human preference, offering a highly efficient and universally applicable solution. See Our project page : https://cubeyoung.github.io/pladis-proejct/