Journal Article

A Comprehensive Survey on Test-Time Adaptation Under Distribution Shifts

Tan, Tieniu, Liang, Jian, He, Ran

2025

Overview

Machine learning methods strive to acquire a robust model during the training process that can effectively generalize to test samples, even in the presence of distribution shifts. However, these methods often suffer from performance degradation due to unknown test distributions. Test-time adaptation (TTA), an emerging paradigm, has the potential to adapt a pre-trained model to unlabeled data during testing, before making predictions. Recent progress in this paradigm has highlighted the significant benefits of using unlabeled data to train self-adapted models prior to inference. In this survey, we categorize TTA into several distinct groups based on the form of test data, namely, test-time domain adaptation, test-time batch adaptation, and online test-time adaptation. For each category, we provide a comprehensive taxonomy of advanced algorithms and discuss various learning scenarios. Furthermore, we analyze relevant applications of TTA and discuss open challenges and promising areas for future research. For a comprehensive list of TTA methods, kindly refer to https://github.com/tim-learn/awesome-test-time-adaptation .

• Publisher: Springer US,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Adaptation / Algorithms / Artificial Intelligence / Computer Imaging / Computer Science / Image Processing and Computer Vision / Machine learning / Pattern Recognition / Pattern Recognition and Graphics / Performance degradation / Special Issue on Open-World Visual Recognition / Taxonomy / Testing time / Vision