# Preserving Domain Generalization in Fine-Tuning via Joint Parameter Selection

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.16976 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.16976/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 40 of its 48 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Aug 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 40)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [A Simple Framework for Contrastive Learning of Visual Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.05709/) (2020)
- [Momentum Contrast for Unsupervised Visual Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.05722/) (2019)
- [Parameter-Efficient Transfer Learning for NLP](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.00751/) (2019)
- [Domain-Adversarial Training of Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.07818/) (2015)
- [Locating and Editing Factual Associations in GPT](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.05262/) (2022)
- [Invariant Risk Minimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.02893/) (2019)
- [Transformer Feed-Forward Layers Are Key-Value Memories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.14913/) (2020)
- [Moment Matching for Multi-Source Domain Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.01754/) (2018)
- [Deep CORAL: Correlation Alignment for Deep Domain Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.01719/) (2016)
- [Deep Hashing Network for Unsupervised Domain Adaptation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.07522/) (2017)
- [In Search of Lost Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.01434/) (2020)
- [Mass-Editing Memory in a Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.07229/) (2022)
- [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)
- [Domain Generalization: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.02503/) (2021)
- [Recognition in Terra Incognita](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.04975/) (2018)
- [Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning for Large Models: A Comprehensive Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14608/) (2024)
- [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)
- [Gradient Matching for Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.09937/) (2021)
- [Fishr: Invariant Gradient Variances for Out-of-Distribution Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.02934/) (2021)
- [Block Pruning For Faster Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.04838/) (2021)
- [On the Effectiveness of Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.15583/) (2022)
- [Sharpness-Aware Gradient Matching for Domain Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.10353/) (2023)
- [Empirical or Invariant Risk Minimization? A Sample Complexity Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.16412/) (2020)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Domain generalization seeks to develop models trained on a limited set of source domains that are capable of generalizing effectively to unseen target domains. While the predominant approach leverages large-scale pre-trained vision models as initialization, recent studies have highlighted that full fine-tuning can compromise the intrinsic generalization capabilities of these models. To address this limitation, parameter-efficient adaptation strategies have emerged, wherein only a subset of model parameters is selectively fine-tuned, thereby balancing task adaptation with the preservation of generalization. Motivated by this paradigm, we introduce Joint Parameter Selection (JPS), a novel method that restricts updates to a small, sparse subset of parameters, thereby retaining and harnessing the generalization strength of pre-trained models. Theoretically, we establish a generalization error bound that explicitly accounts for the sparsity of parameter updates, thereby providing a principled justification for selective fine-tuning. Practically, we design a selection mechanism employing dual operators to identify and update parameters exhibiting consistent and significant gradients across all source domains. Extensive benchmark experiments demonstrate that JPS achieves superior performance compared to state-of-the-art domain generalization methods, substantiating both the efficiency and efficacy of the proposed approach.