arXiv:2602.12811cs.CLcs.AI2026-02

LLM的语法能力提升时,其预测大脑活动的左右脑不对称性也随之增强。

Left-right asymmetry in predicting brain activity from LLMs' representations emerges with their formal linguistic competence

  • 通过对比不同训练阶段模型的语法判断与生成能力,揭示不对称性来源
  • 语法正确性判断能力提升时,左脑预测相关性显著优于右脑
  • 该现象在多语言、多模型中复现,仅与形式语言能力相关

当人类和大型语言模型(LLMs)处理相同文本时,模型内部激活与功能性磁共振成像(fMRI)测量的大脑活动存在相关性。已有研究表明,随着模型训练进展,其在左半球预测大脑活动的能力提升幅度大于右半球。本文旨在探究导致这种左右不对称性的模型能力本质。使用OLMo-2 7B模型在不同训练检查点及英语受试者fMRI数据,我们对比了大脑预测相关性的左右不对称性演变与多个基准任务的表现。结果发现,不对称性与模型的形式语言能力同步出现:即在最小对比对中为语法正确的句子赋予更高概率,以及生成合乎语法的文本。相反,该不对称性不随算术或Dyck语言任务表现变化,也与世界知识和推理类任务无关。研究进一步扩展至Pythia模型族及法语、汉语,结果一致。表明左右脑预测不对称性与形式语言能力进展高度匹配。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

When humans and large language models (LLMs) process the same text, activations in the LLMs correlate with brain activity measured, e.g., with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Moreover, it has been shown that, as the training of an LLM progresses, the performance in predicting brain activity from its internal activations improves more in the left hemisphere than in the right one. The aim of the present work is to understand which kind of competence acquired by the LLMs underlies the emergence of this left-right asymmetry. Using the OLMo-2 7B language model at various training checkpoints and fMRI data from English participants, we compare the evolution of the left-right asymmetry in the correlation between brain activity and model predictions alongside performance on several benchmarks. We observe that the asymmetry co-emerges with the formal linguistic abilities of the LLM. These abilities are demonstrated in two ways: by the model's capacity to assign a higher probability to an acceptable sentence than to a grammatically unacceptable one within a minimal contrasting pair, and by its ability to produce well-formed text. By contrast, the left-right asymmetry does not align with the performance on arithmetic or Dyck language tasks; nor with text-based tasks involving world knowledge and reasoning. We generalize these results to another family of LLMs (Pythia) and two other languages, French and Chinese. Our observations indicate that the left-right asymmetry in brain predictivity matches the progress in formal linguistic competence.

语言模型脑机预测语法能力不对称性

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