Multimodal Representation Learning by Alternating Unimodal Adaptation

XiaoHui Zhang, Jaehong Yoon, Mohit Bansal, Huaxiu Yao

Keywords: multimodal learning; modality laziness; missing modality; alternating unimodal learning; test-time multimodal information fusion

TL;DR: An alternating unimodal adaptation approach to address modality laziness in multimodal representation learning

Abstract: Multimodal learning, which integrates data from diverse sensory modes, plays a pivotal role in artificial intelligence. However, existing multimodal learning methods often struggle with challenges where some modalities appear more dominant than others during multimodal learning, resulting in suboptimal performance. To address this challenge, we propose MLA (Multimodal Learning with Alternating Unimodal Adaptation). MLA reframes the conventional joint multimodal learning process by transforming it into an alternating unimodal learning process, thereby minimizing interference between modalities. Simultaneously, it captures cross-modal interactions through a shared head, which undergoes continuous optimization across different modalities. This optimization process is controlled by a gradient modification mechanism to prevent the shared head from losing previously acquired information. During the inference phase, MLA utilizes a test-time uncertainty-based model fusion mechanism to integrate multimodal information. Extensive experiments are conducted on five diverse datasets, encompassing scenarios with complete modalities and scenarios with missing modalities. These experiments demonstrate the superiority of MLA over competing prior approaches.

Primary Area: representation learning for computer vision, audio, language, and other modalities

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Submission Number: 616