Unleashing the Potential of All Test Samples: Mean-Shift Guided Test-Time Adaptation
Jizhou Han, Chenhao Ding, Songlin Dong, Xinyuan Gao, Qiang Wang, Yuhang He, Yihong Gong · IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology · 2026
Visual-language models (VLMs) like CLIP exhibit strong generalization but struggle with distribution shifts at test time. Existing training-free test-time adaptation (TTA) methods operate strictly within CLIP’s original feature space, relying on high-confidence samples while overlooking the potential of low-confidence ones. We propose MS-TTA, a training-free approach that enhances feature representations beyond CLIP’s space using a single-step k-nearest neighbors (kNN) Mean-Shift. By refining all test samples, MS-TTA improves feature compactness and class separability, leading to more stable adaptation. Additionally, a cache of refined embeddings further enhances inference by providing Mean-Shift-enhanced logits. Extensive evaluations on OOD and Cross-Dataset Benchmarks demonstrate that MS-TTA consistently outperforms state-of-the-art training-free TTA methods, achieving robust adaptation without requiring additional training.