Multi-phase Fine-Tuning: A New Fine-Tuning Approach for Sign Language Recognition

Abstract

In this paper, we propose multi-phase fine-tuning for tuning deep networks from typical object recognition to sign language recognition (SLR). It extends the successful idea of transfer learning by fine-tuning the network’s weights over several phases. Starting from the top of the network, layers are trained in phases by successively unfreezing layers for training. We apply this novel training approach to SLR, since in this application, training data is scarce and differs considerably from the datasets which are usually used for pre-training. Our experiments show that multi-phase fine-tuning can reach significantly better accuracy in fewer training epochs compared to previous fine-tuning techniques

A review on computational methods based automated sign language recognition system for hearing and speech impaired community

“…Another method that the author 167 suggests is a multi‐phase fine‐tuning for deep networks to recognize isolated signs instead of just normal object identification in (SLR). By fine‐tuning the network's weights over numerous stages, it expands on the fruitful concept of transfer learning.…”