DKGZSL: Leveraging Dynamic Visual-Semantic Knowledge for Generative Zero-Shot Learning

View at publisher
Authors: Jun Hu, Min Meng, Jigang Liu, Jun Yu, Jigang Wu
Cited by: 1
References: 59

Abstract

Generative Zero-Shot Learning (GZSL) methods address the challenge of recognizing unseen classes by synthesizing visual features, thereby converting ZSL into a supervised learning task. However, existing approaches are predominantly constrained to two multi-stage strategies: pre-generation prior knowledge enhancement and post-generation feature refinement. These paradigms often suffer from error propagation across stages, ultimately limiting generation quality and representational fidelity. To overcome these limitations, we propose DKGZSL, a novel generative framework that injects dynamic visual-semantic knowledge directly into the feature synthesis process, effectively unifying generation and refinement into a single cohesive stage. Specifically, a Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) is introduced to convert semantic information into hierarchical visual knowledge representations. To ensure accurate semanticvisual alignment, we further design a Semantic-Oriented Visual Refinement (SOVR) module that reshapes real visual features into semantically aligned and noise-suppressed representations, providing precise guidance for the KTN. Moreover, hierarchical knowledge extracted from each KTN layer is progressively transmitted to the generator via Meta-Fusion Units (MFUs), enabling dynamic semantic guidance and improving generation quality. Extensive experiments on three benchmark datasets demonstrate that DKGZSL achieves consistent state-of-the-art performance with both ResNet-101 and ViT-B/16 feature extractors. Comprehensive ablation studies further confirm the effectiveness and complementarity of each proposed component. The code is available at https://github.com/JingHu-gdut/DKGZSL.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Domain Adaptation and Few-Shot Learning Multimodal Machine Learning Applications Topic Modeling

Publication details

Journal / source
IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Volume
36
Issue
7
Pages
9349–9362
Publication date
2 March 2026