MTUNet: Few-shot Image Classification with Visual Explanations

Abstract

Few-shot learning (FSL) approaches, mostly neural network-based, are assuming that the pre-trained knowledge can be obtained from base (seen) categories and transferred to novel (unseen) categories. However, the black-box nature of neural networks makes it difficult to understand what is actually transferred, which may hamper its application in some risk-sensitive areas. In this paper, we reveal a new way to perform explainable FSL for image classification, using discriminative patterns and pairwise matching. Experimental results prove that the proposed method can achieve satisfactory explainability on two mainstream datasets.