arXiv:2511.05743cs.CL2025-11

不靠复制就能实现抽象式上下文学习,突破传统认知。

In-Context Learning Without Copying

  • 设计新训练方法Hapax,主动抑制可预测的重复内容
  • 31.7%令牌不参与损失计算,仍保持13/21任务更优性能
  • 诱导头变少变弱,但抽象推理能力不受影响

归纳头是通过匹配早期上下文模式并逐字复制其延续的注意力头。随着模型发展出归纳头,训练损失急剧下降,这一现象常被视为归纳头支撑广泛上下文学习(ICL)能力的证据。本文探究归纳头是否为抽象式ICL能力(即答案不在输入上下文中)的必要基础,或该能力能否独立出现。我们提出Hapax训练策略,消除由归纳头可预测令牌的损失贡献。尽管诱导复制显著减少,抽象式ICL能力依然保留,模型在21项任务中有13项表现优于原始模型,且31.7%的令牌未参与损失计算。此外,模型在归纳头无法预测的位置取得了更低的损失值。机制分析显示,使用Hapax训练的模型虽发展出更少更弱的归纳头,但仍保持抽象式ICL能力。结果表明,归纳头与抽象式ICL之间的发育关联比先前假设的要弱。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Induction heads are attention heads that perform inductive copying by matching patterns from earlier context and copying their continuations verbatim. As models develop induction heads, they experience a sharp drop in training loss, a phenomenon cited as evidence that induction heads may underlie a wide range of in-context learning (ICL) capabilities. In this work, we investigate whether induction heads are a necessary building block for learning abstractive ICL capabilities (i.e., tasks where the answer is not contained in the input context), or whether such capabilities can emerge independently. We propose Hapax, a training regime that omits the loss contribution of tokens predictable by induction heads. Despite a significant reduction in inductive copying, abstractive ICL capabilities are preserved, with the model achieving higher accuracy than the vanilla model on 13 out of 21 tasks, even though 31.7% of tokens are omitted from the loss. Furthermore, our model achieves lower loss values on token positions that induction heads cannot predict. Mechanistic analysis shows that models trained with Hapax develop fewer and weaker induction heads despite preserving abstractive ICL capabilities. Our findings suggest that the developmental link between induction heads and abstractive ICL capabilities is weaker than previously hypothesized.

上下文学习归纳头Hapax模型机制

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