Singapore

Cross-modal retrieval aims to align different modalities via semantic similarity. However, existing methods often assume that image-text pairs are perfectly aligned, overlooking Noisy Correspondences in real data. These misaligned pairs misguide similarity learning and degrade retrieval performance. Previous methods often rely on coarse-grained categorizations that simply divide data into clean and noisy samples, overlooking the intrinsic diversity within noisy instances. Moreover, they typically apply uniform training strategies regardless of sample characteristics, resulting in suboptimal sample utilization for model optimization. To address the above challenges, we introduce a novel framework, called Pseudo-label Consistency-Guided Sample Refinement (PCSR), which enhances correspondence reliability by explicitly dividing samples based on pseudo-label consistency. Specifically, we first employ a confidence-based estimation to distinguish clean and noisy pairs, then refine the noisy pairs via pseudo-label consistency to uncover structurally distinct subsets. We further proposed a Pseudo-label Consistency Score (PCS) to quantify prediction stability, enabling the separation of ambiguous and refinable samples within noisy pairs. Accordingly, we adopt Adaptive Pair Optimization (APO), where ambiguous samples are optimized with robust loss functions and refinable ones are enhanced via text replacement during training. Extensive experiments on CC152K, MS-COCO and Flickr30K validate the effectiveness of our method in improving retrieval robustness under noisy supervision. Our code is available at supplementary materials.

AAAI 2026

PCSR: Pseudo-label Consistency-Guided Sample Refinement for Noisy Correspondence Learning

image-text retreival

multimodel

noisy correspondence

We are pleased to announce the Fortieth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-26), which will be held in Singapore EXPO from January 20 to January 27, 2026.

The purpose of the AAAI conference series is to promote research in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and foster scientific exchange between researchers, practitioners, scientists, students, and engineers across the entirety of AI and its affiliated disciplines. AAAI-26 will feature technical paper presentations, special tracks, invited speakers, workshops, tutorials, poster sessions, senior member presentations, competitions, and exhibit programs, and a range of other activities to be announced.<br><br>

To access this event page, you need to log in with the **email address you registered with**. <br>Access credentials will be sent to your email from Underline -  subject line "Welcome to AAAI 2026". Please be sure to check your spam email folder if you do not see an email confirmation right away.

Please log in

To access this event page, you are required to register.
Please complete your registration to continue.

We recommend reading [**the registration information**](https://aaai.org/conference/aaai/aaai-26/registration/) first.

**Online Registration Form**: https://aaai.getregistered.net/conference-2026 

Registration Required

We are pleased to announce the Fortieth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-26), which will be held in Singapore EXPO from January 20 to January 27, 2026.

poster

Label Distribution Learning (LDL) is an effective machine learning paradigm for addressing label ambiguity, where each sample is annotated with a distribution that conveys rich semantic information. However, during the actual annotation process of label distributions, annotators often exhibit divergent labeling preferences for the same sample. Most existing LDL methods overlook this heterogeneity, assuming that the observed label distribution originates from a single labeling pattern. Such an assumption limits their capacity to manage inter-annotator disagreement and constrains the generalization of the resulting models. To address this issue, we propose, for the first time, a Dirichlet process mixture model (DPMM)-based framework for LDL. This framework leverages nonparametric Bayesian methods to adaptively uncover diverse latent labeling patterns from the data and to accurately model annotator heterogeneity. Specifically, the ground-truth label distribution of each sample is modeled as a weighted mixture of multiple latent components, where a feature-conditioned gating mechanism adaptively controls the contribution of each component. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model consistently achieves competitive performance on several widely-used benchmark datasets.

Learning Label Distribution with Dirichlet Process Mixture Model

With the rapid development of generative models, such as generative adversarial networks and diffusion models, the task of face forgery detection has emerged, aiming to identify forged faces in real-world scenarios. A key challenge for current face forgery detection models is improving generalization to unknown forgeries. To address this, we propose ResProto-FD, a framework that constructs residual prototype sets to capture diverse forgery cues and discriminative differences from real faces. Our novel perspective collects prototypes from the most informative residual features generated during training, enabling better representation of various forgery traces and real-vs-fake distinctions. First, we introduce a Visual-Language Residual Learning (VLRL) module based on the CLIP model. This module constructs residual features between image and text embeddings to capture inconsistencies between visual features and associated textual semantics. In doing so, it guides the model to attend to subtle visual forgery clues and enhances the discriminative power of image representations. Furthermore, we design a Gradient-aware Residual Prototypes (GRP) mechanism— a dynamic collection strategy that selectively stores uncertain residual features based on gradient signals to build the prototype sets. This enhances the model’s ability to generalize to unknown forgery types. Extensive experiments across various datasets and forgery methods demonstrate that ResProto-FD significantly improves generalization performance and consistently outperforms state-of-the-art methods.

ResProto-FD: Visual-Language Residual Prototype Sets for Generalized Face Forgery Detection

Recent advances in point cloud analysis have increasingly leveraged large-scale unlabeled data through self-supervised representation learning. Autoregressive models based on next-token prediction have shown strong performance, but they usually model point clouds as linear sequences, ignoring their inherent spatial structure. To address this limitation, we propose PointChain, a novel autoregressive paradigm inspired by human perception mechanisms, designed to better align with the structural properties of point cloud. Specifically, we introduce structural chain encoding, which models the understanding process as a global-to-local structural chain inference, preserving spatial relationships throughout the prediction sequence. During pre-training, we design two auxiliary tasks: a next-scale prediction task that encourages cross-scale reasoning, and a scale-level contrastive learning task that promotes semantic consistency across scales. These components guide the model to learn more discriminative and generalizable point cloud representations. Experiments on multiple benchmarks, using both Transformer and Mamba backbones, validate the effectiveness of our approach. PointChain achieves state-of-the-art performance on several downstream tasks, including 93.75% accuracy on the hardest split of ScanObjectNN without voting strategy.

PointChain: Learning Generalizable Point Cloud Representations via Structural Chain Modeling

As a challenging vision-language task, Zero-Shot Composed Image Retrieval (ZS-CIR) is designed to retrieve target images using bi-modal (image+text) queries. Typical ZS-CIR methods employ an inversion network to generate pseudo-word tokens that effectively represent the input semantics. However, the inversion-based methods suffer from two inherent issues: First, the task discrepancy exists because inversion training and CIR inference involve different objectives. Second, the modality discrepancy arises from the input feature distribution mismatch between training and inference. To this end, we propose a lightweight post-hoc framework, consisting of two components: (1) A new text-anchored triplet construction pipeline leverages a large language model (LLM) to transform a standard image-text dataset into a triplet dataset, where a textual description serves as the target of each triplet. (2) The MoTa-Adapter, a novel parameter-efficient fine-tuning method, adapts the dual encoder to the CIR task using our constructed triplet data. Specifically, on the text side, multiple sets of learnable task prompts are integrated via a Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) layer to capture task-specific priors and handle different types of modifications. On the image side, MoTa-Adapter modulates the inversion network's input to better match the downstream text encoder. In addition, an entropy-based optimization strategy is proposed to assign greater weight to challenging samples, thus ensuring efficient adaptation. Experiments show that, with the incorporation of our proposed components, inversion-based methods achieve significant improvements, reaching state-of-the-art performance across four widely-used benchmarks. All data and code will be made publicly available.

Modality and Task Adaptation for Enhanced Zero-shot Composed Image Retrieval

In order to overcome the limitations of existing negative sampling strategies, such as vulnerability to false negatives, limited generalization, and lack of control over sample hardness, 
we propose DANS-KGC (Diffusion-based Adaptive Negative Sampling for Knowledge Graph Completion). DANS-KGC comprises three key components: the Difficulty Assessment Module (DAM), the Adaptive Negative Sampling Module (ANS), and the Dynamic Training Mechanism (DTM). DAM evaluates the learning difficulty of entities by integrating semantic, structural, and statistical features. Based on this assessment, ANS employs a conditional diffusion model with difficulty-aware noise scheduling, leveraging semantic and neighborhood information during the denoising phase to generate negative samples of diverse hardness. DTM further enhances learning by dynamically adjusting the hardness distribution of negative samples throughout training, enabling a curriculum-style progression from easy to hard examples. Extensive experiments on six benchmark datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and generalization ability of DANS-KGC, with the method achieving state-of-the-art results on all three evaluation metrics for the UMLS and YAGO3-10 datasets.

DANS-KGC: Diffusion Based Adaptive Negative Sampling for Knowledge Graph Completion

The widespread adoption of reinforcement learning-based alignment highlights the growing importance of reward models. Various benchmarks have been built to evaluate reward models in various domains and scenarios. However, a significant gap remains in assessing reward models for long-form generation, despite its critical role in real-world applications. To bridge this, we introduce Long-form RewardBench, the first reward modeling testbed specifically designed for long-form generation. Our benchmark encompasses five key subtasks: QA, RAG, Chat, Writing, and Reasoning. We collected instruction and preference data through a meticulously designed multi-stage data collection process, and conducted extensive experiments on 20+ mainstream reward models, including both classifiers and generative models. Our findings reveal that current models still lack long-form reward modeling capabilities. Furthermore, we designed a novel Long-form Needle-in-a-Haystack Test, which revealed a correlation between reward modeling performance and the error's position within a response, as well as the overall response length, with distinct characteristics observed between classification and generative models. Finally, we demonstrate that classifier exhibit better generalizability compared to generative models trained on the same data. As the first benchmark for long-form reward modeling, this work aims to offer a robust platform for visualizing progress in this crucial area.

Long-form RewardBench: Evaluating Reward Models for Long-form Generation

Trajectory representation learning transforms complex spatio-temporal features of trajectories into dense, low-dimensional embeddings, enabling applications in intelligent transportation systems. With advances in this field and the availability of large-scale traffic data, intelligent urban systems have been widely deployed in major cities. However, existing methods heavily rely on large volumes of trajectory data, limiting their transferability to cities with sparse data, especially small or less-developed ones. Moreover, most current approaches learn representations within a single city, overlooking the shared travel patterns across regions and cities with similar geographic contexts. To address these issues, we propose MetaTRL, a self-supervised cross-city trajectory representation learning method based on meta-learning. Specifically, we introduce a Shared and Private Parameterized Cross-city Meta-learning Framework to support knowledge sharing and transfer across cities. We further design a Meta-knowledge Enhanced Road Segment Encoder and a Trajectory Encoder that integrates private and shared knowledge to learn and fuse spatio-temporal trajectory features. Extensive experiments on two real-world datasets and multiple downstream tasks demonstrate the significant superiority of MetaTRL over state-of-the-art baselines and achieves a remarkable average improvement of 134.66\% in Macro-F1 on destination prediction task. The code of our model is provided in the appendix.

Self-Supervised Cross-City Trajectory Representation Learning Based on Meta-Learning

Large-scale three dimensional vehicle aerodynamics prediction poses critical computational challenges in modern automotive design, where traditional CFD methods require prohibitive simulation times that conflict with rapid design iteration demands. While recent neural operator approaches show promise, existing methods struggle with computational complexity in dense meshes and fail to preserve essential topological information when processing large-scale point clouds. We propose FCMO, a physics-aware neural operator that integrates fluid mechanics principles with selective state space modeling for efficient large-scale vehicle aerodynamics. FCMO introduces four synergistic components: FlowCurv Anchor Sampling that intelligently selects mesh nodes based on normalized local curvature and windward sensitivity. Additionally, dual-scale physics-aware position encoding with adaptive k-NN construction transforms 3D irregular meshes into causality-preserving sequences through feature-guided serpentine scanning. The model integrates a flow-aware Mamba processor incorporating selective mechanisms that dynamically modulate state transitions based on wall distance and flow characteristics. Finally, a physics-constrained decoder enforces conservation laws through mixed weighted interpolation. Extensive experiments on Ahmed-Body and DrivAerNet benchmarks demonstrate that FCMO achieves consistent state-of-the-art performance with 5.2% improvement in surface pressure prediction, 9.3% enhancement in wall shear stress estimation, and 11.4% boost in drag coefficient accuracy, while maintaining superior computational efficiency with 9.4% fewer FLOPs and 9.9% reduced memory usage compared to existing methods.

FCMO: A Flow-Curv Mamba Operator for Large-Scale 3D Vehicle Aerodynamics

Large-scale alignment pipelines typically pair a policy model with a separately trained reward model whose parameters remain frozen during reinforcement learning (RL). This separation creates a complex, resource-intensive pipeline and suffers from a performance ceiling due to a static reward signal. We propose a novel framework, Unified Reward & Policy Optimization (URPO), that unifies instruction-following ("player") and reward modeling ("referee") within a single model and a single training phase. Our method recasts all alignment data-including preference pairs, verifiable reasoning, and open-ended instructions-into a unified generative format optimized by a single Group-Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) loop. This enables the model to learn from ground-truth preferences and verifiable logic while simultaneously generating its own rewards for open-ended tasks. Experiments on the Qwen2.5-7B model demonstrate URPO's superiority. Our unified model significantly outperforms a strong baseline using a separate generative reward model, boosting the instruction-following score on AlpacaEval from 42.24 to 44.84 and achieving a 36% relative improvement on the challenging AIME reasoning benchmark. Furthermore, URPO cultivates a superior internal evaluator as a byproduct of training, achieving a RewardBench score of 85.15 and surpassing the dedicated reward model it replaces (83.55). By eliminating the need for a separate reward model and fostering a co-evolutionary dynamic between generation and evaluation, URPO presents a simpler, more efficient, and more effective path towards robustly aligned language models.

URPO: A Unified Reward & Policy Optimization Framework for Large Language Models

Event cameras have gained increasing popularity in computer vision due to their ultra-high dynamic range and temporal resolution. However, event networks heavily rely on task-specific designs due to the unstructured data distribution and spatial-temporal (S-T) inhomogeneity, making it hard to reuse existing architectures for new tasks. We propose OmniEvent, the first unified event representation learning framework that achieves SOTA performance across diverse tasks, fully removing the need of task-specific designs. Unlike previous methods that treat event data as 3D point clouds with manually tuned S-T scaling weights, OmniEvent proposes a decouple-enhance-fuse paradigm, where the local feature aggregation and enhancement is done independently on the spatial and temporal domains to avoid inhomogeneity issues. Space-filling curves are applied to enable large receptive fields while improving memory and compute efficiency. The features from individual domains are then fused by attention to learn S-T interactions. The output of OmniEvent is a grid-shaped tensor, which enables standard vision models to process event data without architecture change. With a unified framework and similar hyper-parameters, OmniEvent out-performs (tasks-specific) SOTA by up to 68.2% across 3 representative tasks and 10 datasets (Fig.1). Code will be released upon acceptance.

Downloads

Next from AAAI 2026

Learning Label Distribution with Dirichlet Process Mixture Model

Similar lecture

Geometry-Aware Noisy Correspondence Mitigation for Cross-Modal Text-Based Person Retrieval

.css-70qvj9{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}Downloads

Next from AAAI 2026

Learning Label Distribution with Dirichlet Process Mixture Model

Similar lecture

Geometry-Aware Noisy Correspondence Mitigation for Cross-Modal Text-Based Person Retrieval

Downloads