# Practical Transferability Estimation for Image Classification Tasks

Source: [Practical Transferability Estimation for Image Classification Tasks](<https://www.sota2.com/research/paper/68fa72551e209131cea55b6c>)

Collection index: [llms.txt](<https://www.sota2.com/research/llms.txt>)

Data updated: 2025-10-26T02:23:12.204Z

Authors: Yang Tan, Yang Li, Shao-Lun Huang

Published: 2021-06-19T11:59:11.000Z

## Abstract

Transferability estimation is an essential problem in transfer learning to predict how good the performance is when transferring a source model (or source task) to a target task. Recent analytical transferability metrics have been widely used for source model selection and multi-task learning. A major challenge is how to make transfereability estimation robust under the cross-domain cross-task settings. The recently proposed OTCE score solves this problem by considering both domain and task differences, with the help of transfer experiences on auxiliary tasks, which causes an efficiency overhead. In this work, we propose a practical transferability metric called JC-NCE score that dramatically improves the robustness of the task difference estimation in OTCE, thus removing the need for auxiliary tasks. Specifically, we build the joint correspondences between source and target data via solving an optimal transport problem with a ground cost considering both the sample distance and label distance, and then compute the transferability score as the negative conditional entropy of the matched labels. Extensive validations under the intra-dataset and inter-dataset transfer settings demonstrate that our JC-NCE score outperforms the auxiliary-task free version of OTCE for 7% and 12%, respectively, and is also more robust than other existing transferability metrics on average.

## Recorded benchmark results

A research result applies to its stated dataset, split, metric and evaluation configuration. Compare like-for-like settings, preserve the metric's unit and direction, and distinguish paper-reported results from independent reproduction. The best result recorded here is not a claim of exhaustive, current global coverage.

## Original sources and implementation

[Original paper](<https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.10479>)

[PDF](<https://arxiv.org/pdf/2106.10479.pdf>)