arXiv Computer Vision

SCALE: Improving Guidance-Free Visual Generation via Self-Contrastive Alignment for Likelihood Estimation

The paper introduces Self-Contrastive Guidance (SCG), a method that contrasts a model’s predictions on real versus self-generated samples to directly guide generation toward the true data manifold. SCG is incorporated into the likelihood objective through reparameterization, resulting in the Self-Contrastive Alignment for Likelihood Estimation (SCALE) framework, which produces SCG-enhanced predictions in a single forward pass. Experiments on class-conditional and text-to-image generation with diffusion and autoregressive models show that SCALE consistently outperforms existing guidance-free baselines and further benefits from combining with Direct Preference Optimization (DPO).

arXiv AI
Jul 8

Rethinking Visual Autoregressive Sampling with Information-Grounding Guidance

arXiv:2509. 23876v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Autoregressive (AR) models based on next-scale prediction have emerged as a powerful tool for image generation, but they face a critical weakness: information inconsistencies between patches across timesteps introduced by progressive resolution scaling.

By Ky Dan Nguyen, Hoang Lam Tran, Anh-Dung Dinh, Daochang Liu, Weidong Cai, Xiuying Wang, Chang Xu
arXiv Machine Learning
21h ago

MCLR: Improving Conditional Modeling via Inter-Class Likelihood-Ratio Maximization and Unifying Classifier-Free Guidance with Alignment Objectives

arXiv:2603.22364v4 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Diffusion models achieve strong generative performance but often rely on classifier-free guidance (CFG), an inference-time intervention that modifi...

By Xiang Li, Yixuan Jia, Xiao Li, Jeffrey A. Fessler, Rongrong Wang, Qing Qu
arXiv AI
Oct 5

Correcting Guided Diffusion Trajectories with Spectral Alignment

The paper introduces Spectral Correction Guidance, a training‑free method that uses spectral alignment to detect and correct deviations in guided diffusion trajectories. By comparing intermediate states to an analytic reference spectrum, the approach improves consistency with the forward process and enhances image generation quality. Experiments show consistent gains over baseline guidance in text‑to‑image tasks and on ImageNet, with benefits across guidance scales and fewer denoising steps.

By Gihoon Kim, Taesup Kim
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 7

Global Transport Couplings for Classifier-Free Guided Flows

The paper introduces Global Transport (GT), a class‑agnostic optimal‑transport coupling that can be computed without class labels. GT associates different conditions with distinct regions of the source noise, which degrades performance when used without guidance but consistently improves generation when combined with classifier‑free guidance across various domains, model scales, and sampling budgets. The authors argue that coupling design should be evaluated under guided flow conditions rather than unguided generation, and demonstrate GT’s benefits on both discrete class‑conditioned and continuous text‑conditioned image generation.

By Katarina Petrovi\'c, Zander W. Blasingame, Danyal Rehman, \.Ismail \.Ilkan Ceylan, Michael Bronstein, Stephen Y. Zhang, Lazar Atanackovic, Alexander Tong
arXiv AI
1d ago

Language Guidance for Supervised Vision Training: An Empirical Study of Generalization

The paper investigates whether pretrained language models can act as lightweight auxiliary supervision for supervised vision training, without requiring paired image-text data or complex objectives. Two forms of language guidance—Explicit Language Guidance (ExLG) and Implicit Language Guidance (ImLG)—are evaluated across six generalization regimes, including in‑distribution, out‑of‑distribution, shortcut resistance, texture/shape bias, adversarial robustness, and continual learning. Results show that ExLG improves in‑distribution, low‑data performance, and continual learning retention, while ImLG is more effective in shortcut‑sensitive and adversarial settings, and both add minimal parameters and training overhead.

By Shruthi Gowda, Nikita Jain, Elahe Arani, Bahram Zonooz
arXiv Computer Vision
Sep 22

Classifier-Free Guidance in Flow Matching: Non-Autonomous Potentials, Overshoot, and Posterior-Mean Control

The paper studies classifier‑free guidance (CFG) in Flow Matching, showing that strong guidance can distort the generated distribution by shifting the mean and concentrating trajectories. By interpreting Flow Matching as a time‑varying gradient flow, the authors explain how CFG reshapes the underlying potential and propose a training‑free method, Posterior‑Mean‑Capped CFG (PMC‑CFG), that adaptively limits guidance to the strongest feasible level. Experiments on synthetic and large‑scale image‑generation tasks demonstrate that PMC‑CFG reduces distortion and concentration while improving the alignment–diversity trade‑off, especially when nominal guidance is large.

By Jishen Peng, Zheng Ma