让语言模型学会抽象关系,减少遗忘并提升泛化能力。
Structural Abstraction as an Inductive Bias for Non-Stationary Language Model Training
- 在训练中同时优化具体实例和抽象结构,增强模型对关系的把握。
- 在两个新基准上,模型遗忘率下降,关系泛化能力显著提升。
- 适合持续学习、认知启发式模型设计的研究者参考。
认知科学认为智能体不通过存储孤立经验学习,而是形成捕捉跨情境关系结构的抽象模式。尽管这一观点有行为与脑成像研究支持,但在语言模型中的计算作用仍不明确。本文聚焦非平稳训练场景,探究是否引导学习偏向结构抽象可缓解灾难性遗忘并提升关系泛化。为此,提出轻量级损失修改方法AAT,联合优化具体实例与结构抽象,并构建两个新基准:关系循环基准(RCB)与叙事抽象基准(NAB)。前者以实体掩码模拟关系对齐,后者以谚语作为隐含抽象意义的载体,需在表面差异的情境中推断共性。实验证明,AAT在多个任务中一致降低遗忘,提升泛化表现,结果符合基于模式学习的认知预测。这为持续学习提供了实用方案,也初步揭示了结构抽象是稳定非平稳环境学习的有效信号。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
A foundational principle in cognitive science holds that intelligent agents do not learn by storing experiences as isolated instances, but by forming abstract schemas that capture relational structure shared across situations. Even though this claim is well supported by behavioral and neuroimaging studies, its role as a computational training signal in language models remains underexplored. We target this gap in the setting of non-stationary language model training, asking does biasing learning toward structural abstraction reduce catastrophic interference and improve relational generalization as predicted by human results? To study this question, we introduce Abstraction-Augmented Training (AAT), a lightweight loss-level modification that jointly optimizes over concrete instances and their structural abstractions, and two benchmarks, the Relational Cycle Benchmark (RCB) and the Narrative Abstraction Benchmark (NAB). These resources operationalize core cognitive constructs: entity masking as a computational analog of relational alignment, and proverbs as vehicles for implicit abstract meaning that must be inferred across surface-dissimilar situations. Our empirical results demonstrate that AAT consistently reduces forgetting and improves generalization in a pattern that aligns with cognitive predictions for schema-based learning. Beyond the practical implications for continual learning, these results offer preliminary computational evidence that structural abstraction is a signal for stable learning in non-stationary environments.
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