A semi-supervised image classification algorithm inspired by the primacy effect

Semi-supervised-Learning(SSL) providing a solution to leverage vast amounts of unlabeled data. In cognitive psychology, the Primacy-effect refers to the phenomenon where the initial information encountered tends to leave a deeper impression in human cognitive processes, serving as the basis for subsequent judgments. Inspired by the Primacy-effect, this paper proposes a novel semi-supervised image classification algorithm. The core idea of this algorithm is to mimic the beneficial effects of the Primacy effect on human cognitive processes, simulate similar phenomenon on artificial neural networks. In this paper, the initially labeled data is referred to as exemplar. The algorithm includes an exemplar prediction module, whose main function is to accurately identify examples, ensuring that the model forms a "deep impression" of them. We found that due to the scarcity of examples, it is easy to cause model overfitting. Therefore, we proposes the Weighted- Gradient-Chain technique. Additionally, Pseudo-labeling technique was employed, but during model training, we found that generated erroneous Pseudo-labels could introduce errors. To enhance the quality of Pseudo-label generation, this paper proposes a Pre-Pseudo-labeling method. A series of experiments were conducted on multiple datasets. The results indicate that the proposed model performed well.