arXiv:2605.09985cs.AIcs.LG2026-05

人类学习抽象时会前瞻压缩未来任务,而非仅回顾已有任务。

Prospective Compression in Human Abstraction Learning

论文配图:Prospective Compression in Human Abstraction Learning
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 用视觉编程任务研究人类如何逐步构建可复用的抽象
  • 实验显示人类行为受未来任务结构影响,体现前瞻性压缩
  • 现有算法无法解释这种前瞻学习,适合研究认知机制

程序合成中的核心挑战是在线库学习:在对未来任务需求不确定的情况下,增量式地获取可复用的抽象。现有算法将库学习视为静态任务分布上的回溯压缩,即学习结果由历史任务集合决定。然而,现实学习环境常呈非平稳性,任务由随时间演变的生成过程产生。我们提出并验证假设:在非平稳环境中,人类库学习会前瞻性地选择抽象,以压缩未来任务。通过模式构建任务(Pattern Builder Task)进行两组实验,该任务要求参与者使用少量原始操作、变换和自定义辅助函数,在多轮中构建日益复杂的几何图案。实验设计了互补的潜在课程,以区分前瞻性压缩与其它库学习解释。基于六种涵盖在线学习策略的计算模型分析表明,人类抽象行为对任务生成过程中隐藏的非平稳结构敏感,其表现符合前瞻性压缩,而无法被现有回溯压缩算法或基于大语言模型的归纳偏置所捕捉。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

A core challenge in program synthesis is online library learning: the incremental acquisition of reusable abstractions under uncertainty about future task demands. Existing algorithms treat library learning as retrospective compression over a static task distribution, where the learned library is determined by the corpus of past tasks. However, real-world learning domains are often non-stationary, with tasks arising from a generative process that evolves over time. We propose and test the hypothesis that in non-stationary domains human library learning selects abstractions prospectively: targeting compression of future tasks. We study this question using the Pattern Builder Task, a visual program synthesis paradigm in which participants construct increasingly complex geometric patterns from a small set of primitives, transformations, and custom helpers that carry forward across trials. Using this task, we conduct two experiments with complementary latent curricula, designed to dissociate between behaviors consistent with prospective compression, and alternative library learning accounts. Using six computational models spanning online library learning strategies, we show that human abstraction behavior reflects sensitivity to latent, non-stationary structure in the task-generating process. This behavior is consistent with prospective compression, and cannot be captured by existing retrospective compression-based algorithms, or inductive biases modeled by LLM-based program synthesis.

程序合成认知建模前瞻性学习

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