Domain Adversarial Active Learning for Domain Generalization Classification

Jianting Chen, Ling Ding, Yunxiao Yang, Zaiyuan Di, Yang Xiang

Abstract: Domain generalization (DG) tasks aim to learn cross-domain models from source domains and apply them to unknown target domains. Recent research has demonstrated that diverse and rich source domain samples can enhance domain generalization capability. This work argues that the impact of each sample on the model's generalization ability varies. Even a small-scale but high-quality dataset can achieve a notable level of generalization. Motivated by this, we propose a domain-adversarial active learning (DAAL) algorithm for classification tasks in DG. First, we analyze that the objective of DG tasks is to maximize the inter-class distance within the same domain and minimize the intra-class distance across different domains. We design a domain adversarial selection method that prioritizes challenging samples in an active learning (AL) framework. Second, we hypothesize that even in a converged model, some feature subsets lack discriminatory power within each domain. We develop a method to identify and optimize these feature subsets, thereby maximizing inter-class distance of features. Lastly, We experimentally compare our DAAL algorithm with various DG and AL algorithms across four datasets. The results demonstrate that the DAAL algorithm can achieve strong generalization ability with fewer data resources, thereby significantly reducing data annotation costs in DG tasks.