arXiv:2506.10947cs.AIcs.LG2025-06被引 212

用随机奖励训练语言模型,也能显著提升数学推理能力。

Spurious Rewards: Rethinking Training Signals in RLVR

  • 用伪奖励训练时,GRPO方法通过截断偏差放大预训练行为
  • Qwen2.5-Math-7B在随机奖励下数学成绩提升21.4个百分点
  • 该效果依赖模型特性,仅对Qwen类模型有效

我们发现,即使奖励与正确答案几乎无关或为负相关,基于可验证奖励的强化学习(RLVR)仍能在某些语言模型中激发强大的数学推理能力。例如,使用GRPO方法进行训练,仅用随机分配的奖励,就使Qwen2.5-Math-7B在MATH-500上的表现提升了21.4个百分点,几乎接近真实奖励带来的29.1个百分点提升。为解释这一反直觉现象,我们发现GRPO中的截断项会产生截断偏差,能够放大预训练阶段学到的高先验行为。以Qwen2.5-Math模型为例,我们识别出一种称为“代码推理”的行为——即在无实际代码执行的情况下进行代码式推理,其频率从65%上升至超过90%。然而,此类可放大的行为具有高度模型依赖性,在其他模型族如Llama3或OLMo2上,同样有效的伪奖励往往无法带来性能提升。结果表明,必须在多种模型上验证强化学习方法,而非依赖单一主流模型;在Qwen模型上,即使随机奖励也可能带来看似显著的性能提升,但未必反映真实能力进步。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

We show that reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards (RLVR) can elicit strong mathematical reasoning in certain language models even with spurious rewards that have little, no, or even negative correlation with the correct answer. For example, RLVR training with GRPO improves MATH-500 performance for Qwen2.5-Math-7B by 21.4 percentage points using randomly assigned rewards, nearly matching the 29.1-point gain from ground-truth rewards. To explain this counterintuitive observation, we show that GRPO exhibits a clipping bias from the clip term, which can amplify high-prior behaviors learned during pretraining even without informative rewards. As a case study, we identify one such behavior in Qwen2.5-Math models, which we call code reasoning -- reasoning in code without actual code execution; code-reasoning frequency increases from 65 percent to over 90 percent with spurious rewards. However, the presence of such amplifiable behaviors is highly model-dependent. In practice, spurious rewards that are effective for Qwen models often fail to produce gains for other model families, such as Llama3 or OLMo2. Our results highlight the importance of validating RL methods across diverse models rather than relying on a single de facto choice: large gains can arise on Qwen models even from random rewards that do not reflect genuine capability improvements.

强化学习数学推理伪奖励Qwen模型

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