提出VGA机制,解决Transformer中极端令牌问题
Value-State Gated Attention for Mitigating Extreme-Token Phenomena in Transformers
- 用值向量直接计算可学习门控,打破注意力与值状态的不良循环
- 显著减少注意力汇聚点,稳定值状态范数,提升模型性能和量化精度
- 适用于大模型优化,尤其适合关注可解释性和量化部署的研究者
基于Transformer的大模型容易出现极端令牌现象,如注意力汇聚点和值状态耗竭。这些问题源于模型通过聚焦近零值状态的令牌,学习到低效的‘无操作’行为,从而损害性能、量化保真度和可解释性。本文提出值状态门控注意力(VGA),一种简单、专用且稳定的架构机制,能高效实现‘无操作’注意力,直接打破该恶性循环。VGA引入一个从值向量(V)直接计算的可学习、数据相关门控,调节输出。理论分析表明,以自身值状态为依据进行门控,比基于输入嵌入的门控更有效,能解耦值与注意力得分的更新。这建立了一条直接调控路径,使模型可根据生成的值表示抑制令牌贡献。实验显示,VGA显著缓解注意力汇聚点形成,稳定值状态范数,提升性能、量化保真度和模型可解释性。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Large models based on the Transformer architecture are susceptible to extreme-token phenomena, such as attention sinks and value-state drains. These issues, which degrade model performance, quantization fidelity, and interpretability, arise from a problematic mutual reinforcement mechanism where the model learns an inefficient 'no-op' behavior by focusing attention on tokens with near-zero value states. In this paper, we propose Value-State Gated Attention (VGA), a simple, dedicated, and stable architectural mechanism for performing 'no-op' attention efficiently by directly breaking this cycle. VGA introduces a learnable, data-dependent gate, computed directly from the value vectors (V), to modulate the output. Through a theoretical analysis of the underlying gradients, we show that gating the value-state with a function of itself is more effective at decoupling value and attention score updates than prior methods that gate on input embeddings. This creates a direct regulatory pathway that allows the model to suppress a token's contribution based on its emergent value representation. Our experiments demonstrate that VGA significantly mitigates the formation of attention sinks and stabilizes value-state norms, leading to improved performance, robust quantization fidelity, and enhanced model interpretability.
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