Generalization and Knowledge Transfer in Abstract Visual Reasoning Models

We study generalization and knowledge reuse capabilities of deep neural networks in the domain of abstract visual reasoning (AVR), employing Raven's Progressive Matrices (RPMs), a recognized benchmark task for assessing AVR abilities. Two knowledge transfer scenarios referring to the I-RAVEN dataset are investigated. Firstly, inspired by generalization assessment capabilities of the PGM dataset and popularity of I-RAVEN, we introduce Attributeless-I-RAVEN, a benchmark with four generalization regimes that allow to test generalization of abstract rules applied to held-out attributes. Secondly, we construct I-RAVEN-Mesh, a dataset that enriches RPMs with a novel component structure comprising line-based patterns, facilitating assessment of progressive knowledge acquisition in transfer learning setting. The developed benchmarks reveal shortcomings of the contemporary deep learning models, which we partly address with Pathways of Normalized Group Convolution (PoNG) model, a novel neural architecture for solving AVR tasks. PoNG excels in both presented challenges, as well as the standard I-RAVEN and PGM setups.