Cited by 6,678Domain Adaptation and Few-Shot LearningMachine Learning and AlgorithmsReinforcement Learning in Robotics

A Comprehensive Survey on Transfer Learning

Open access
Zhuang, Fuzhen, Qi, Zhiyuan, Duan, Keyu, Xi, Dongbo, Zhu, Yongchun, Zhu, Hengshu, Xiong, Hui, He, Qing·2021·Proceedings of the IEEE

Abstract

Transfer learning aims at improving the performance of target learners on target domains by transferring the knowledge contained in different but related source domains. In this way, the dependence on a large number of target-domain data can be reduced for constructing target learners. Due to the wide application prospects, transfer learning has become a popular and promising area in machine learning. Although there are already some valuable and impressive surveys on transfer learning, these surveys introduce approaches in a relatively isolated way and lack the recent advances in transfer learning. Due to the rapid expansion of the transfer learning area, it is both necessary and challenging to comprehensively review the relevant studies. This survey attempts to connect and systematize the existing transfer learning research studies, as well as to summarize and interpret the mechanisms and the strategies of transfer learning in a comprehensive way, which may help readers have a better understanding of the current research status and ideas. Unlike previous surveys, this survey article reviews more than 40 representative transfer learning approaches, especially homogeneous transfer learning approaches, from the perspectives of data and model. The applications of transfer learning are also briefly introduced. In order to show the performance of different transfer learning models, over 20 representative transfer learning models are used for experiments. The models are performed on three different data sets, that is, Amazon Reviews, Reuters-21578, and Office-31, and the experimental results demonstrate the importance of selecting appropriate transfer learning models for different applications in practice.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1109/jproc.2020.3004555

Cites

216 of 216 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Zhuang, F., Qi, Z., Duan, K., Xi, D., Zhu, Y., Zhu, H., Xiong, H., & He, Q.
Affiliations
  • Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
  • Baidu (China) (CN)
  • Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (US)
Venue
Proceedings of the IEEE
Published
2021-01
Volume
109
Issue
1
Pages
43-76
ISSN
  • 0018-9219 (ISSN-L)
  • 1558-2256
OpenAlex
W3041133507
Cited by
6,678
References
216
Citations by year
2026: 810 · 2025: 1420 · 2024: 1517 · 2023: 1366 · 2022: 960 · 2021: 499 · 2020: 102 · 2019: 2
FWCI
287.87
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Proceedings of the IEEE (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Funders
  • National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFB1004300)
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (U1836206, U1811461, 61773361, 61836013)
  • Project of Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (2017146)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Domain Adaptation and Few-Shot Learning
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Machine Learning and Algorithms
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Reinforcement Learning in Robotics
Keywords
transfer learning, domain adaptation, Amazon reviews, Reuters-21578, Office-31

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review