{
  "altLabels": [
    "Cross-Modality Retrieval",
    "Cross-Modal Search"
  ],
  "definition": "A retrieval task in which the query and retrieved items may be expressed in different modalities, such as retrieving images from text queries or text from image queries.",
  "derivedRelations": [
    {
      "note": "Multimodal retrieval is the broader family involving multiple modalities; cross-modal retrieval specifically crosses a modality boundary between query and retrieved items.",
      "target": "multimodal-retrieval",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "target": "trecvid",
      "type": "related"
    }
  ],
  "distinctions": [
    {
      "reason": "Image retrieval retrieves images; cross-modal retrieval specifically matches across modalities, such as text-to-image or image-to-text.",
      "statement": "Cross-Modal Retrieval is not Image Retrieval.",
      "target": "image-retrieval",
      "targetLabel": "Image Retrieval",
      "targetUri": "https://id.searchplex.net/image-retrieval/"
    },
    {
      "reason": "Reverse image search uses an image as the query, often to find visually similar or related images; cross-modal retrieval crosses between different modalities.",
      "statement": "Cross-Modal Retrieval is not Reverse Image Search.",
      "target": "reverse-image-search",
      "targetLabel": "Reverse Image Search",
      "targetUri": "https://id.searchplex.net/reverse-image-search/"
    },
    {
      "reason": "Cross-modal retrieval may use vector search, but it is a task involving modality boundaries rather than a vector-search mechanism itself.",
      "statement": "Cross-Modal Retrieval is not Vector Search.",
      "target": "vector-search",
      "targetLabel": "Vector Search",
      "targetUri": "https://id.searchplex.net/vector-search/"
    }
  ],
  "id": "cross-modal-retrieval",
  "kind": "Task",
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/",
  "links": [
    {
      "label": "A Comprehensive Survey on Cross-modal Retrieval",
      "type": "canonicalSurvey",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.06215"
    },
    {
      "label": "Image-text Retrieval",
      "type": "canonicalSurvey",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.14713"
    }
  ],
  "modifiedAt": "2026-09-14T06:43:46Z",
  "prefLabel": "Cross-Modal Retrieval",
  "publisher": {
    "name": "Searchplex",
    "url": "https://searchplex.net/"
  },
  "relations": [
    {
      "target": "multimodal-retrieval",
      "type": "broader"
    },
    {
      "note": "Image retrieval retrieves images; cross-modal retrieval specifically matches across modalities, such as text-to-image or image-to-text.",
      "target": "image-retrieval",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "note": "Reverse image search uses an image as the query, often to find visually similar or related images; cross-modal retrieval crosses between different modalities.",
      "target": "reverse-image-search",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "note": "Cross-modal retrieval may use vector search, but it is a task involving modality boundaries rather than a vector-search mechanism itself.",
      "target": "vector-search",
      "type": "notEquivalentTo"
    },
    {
      "target": "embedding",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "image-retrieval",
      "type": "related"
    },
    {
      "target": "vector-search",
      "type": "related"
    }
  ],
  "representations": {
    "html": "https://id.searchplex.net/cross-modal-retrieval/",
    "json": "https://id.searchplex.net/cross-modal-retrieval.json",
    "jsonld": "https://id.searchplex.net/cross-modal-retrieval.jsonld"
  },
  "scheme": "https://id.searchplex.net/scheme/",
  "scopeNote": "Cross-modal retrieval is a narrower case within multimodal retrieval. It emphasizes matching across a modality boundary rather than searching within one modality or combining multiple modalities in a single representation.",
  "status": "published",
  "terms": [
    {
      "community": "academic",
      "label": "Image-Text Retrieval",
      "usage": "nearSynonym"
    },
    {
      "community": "industry",
      "label": "Text-to-Image Search",
      "usage": "nearSynonym"
    },
    {
      "community": "industry",
      "label": "Image-to-Text Search",
      "usage": "nearSynonym"
    },
    {
      "community": "vendor",
      "label": "Cross-Type Search",
      "usage": "informal"
    }
  ],
  "uri": "https://id.searchplex.net/cross-modal-retrieval/"
}