# Deep Companion Learning: Enhancing Generalization Through Historical Consistency Source: [Deep Companion Learning: Enhancing Generalization Through Historical Consistency]() Collection index: [llms.txt]() Data updated: 2025-10-26T03:05:50.207Z Authors: Ruizhao Zhu, Venkatesh Saligrama Published: 2024-07-26T15:31:13.000Z ## Abstract We propose Deep Companion Learning (DCL), a novel training method for Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) that enhances generalization by penalizing inconsistent model predictions compared to its historical performance. To achieve this, we train a deep-companion model (DCM), by using previous versions of the model to provide forecasts on new inputs. This companion model deciphers a meaningful latent semantic structure within the data, thereby providing targeted supervision that encourages the primary model to address the scenarios it finds most challenging. We validate our approach through both theoretical analysis and extensive experimentation, including ablation studies, on a variety of benchmark datasets (CIFAR-100, Tiny-ImageNet, ImageNet-1K) using diverse architectural models (ShuffleNetV2, ResNet, Vision Transformer, etc.), demonstrating state-of-the-art performance. ## 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]() [PDF]()