Extensions in channel and class dimensions for attention-based knowledge distillation

As knowledge distillation technology evolves, it has bifurcated into three distinct methodologies: logic-based, feature-based, and attention-based knowledge distillation. Although the principle of attention-based knowledge distillation is more intuitive, its performance lags behind the other two methods. To address this, we systematically analyze the advantages and limitations of traditional attention-based methods. In order to optimize these limitations and explore more effective attention information, we expand attention-based knowledge distillation in the channel and class dimensions, proposing Spatial Attention-based Knowledge Distillation with Channel Attention (SAKD-Channel) and Spatial Attention-based Knowledge Distillation with Class Attention (SAKD-Class). On CIFAR-100, with ResNet8 × 4 as the student model, SAKD-Channel improves Top-1 validation accuracy by 1.98%, and SAKD-Class improves it by 3.35% compared to traditional distillation methods. On ImageNet, using ResNet18, these two methods improve Top-1 validation accuracy by 0.55% and 0.17%, respectively, over traditional methods. We also conduct extensive experiments to investigate the working mechanisms and application conditions of channel and class dimensions knowledge distillation, providing new theoretical insights for attention-based knowledge transfer. • Analyze potential and limitations of traditional attention-based knowledge distillation. • Extend attention-based knowledge distillation in channel and class dimensions. • Investigate roles of spatial, channel and class attention in knowledge distillation.