Transformer-Prompted Network: Efficient Audio–Visual Segmentation via Transformer and Prompt Learning

Audio–visual segmentation (AVS) is a challenging task that focuses on segmenting sound-producing objects within video frames by leveraging audio signals. Existing convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and Transformer-based methods extract features separately from modality-specific encoders and then use fusion modules to integrate the visual and auditory features. We propose an effective Transformer-prompted network, TPNet, which utilizes prompt learning with a Transformer to guide the CNN in addressing AVS tasks. Specifically, during feature encoding, we incorporate a frequency-based prompt-supplement module to fine-tune and enhance the encoded features through frequency-domain methods. Furthermore, during audio–visual fusion, we integrate a self-supplementing cross-fusion module that uses self-attention, two-dimensional selective scanning, and cross-attention mechanisms to merge and enhance audio–visual features effectively. The prompt features undergo the same processing in cross-modal fusion, further refining the fused features to achieve more accurate segmentation results. Finally, we apply self-knowledge distillation to the network, further enhancing the model performance. Extensive experiments on the AVSBench dataset validate the effectiveness of TPNet.