数据信噪比与样本量共同决定神经网络表征对齐程度。
Signal-to-Noise Ratio and Sample Size Govern Representational Alignment in Neural Networks

- 通过控制噪声和样本量,研究不同网络的表征对齐机制。
- 信噪比越高,对齐度越强;样本量在插值阈值附近导致对齐最弱。
- 对齐不等于泛化好,揭示表征对齐与泛化性能解耦。
神经网络在不同架构、训练协议或数据集下训练时,其潜在表示常表现出结构相似性,即表征对齐现象。本文在受控环境中,使用独立噪声扰动的训练集,在回归与分类任务上训练多组网络,研究该现象。结果表明,信噪比(SNR)与训练样本量对对齐的影响在真实数据与单隐层线性网络中具有一致性,且可解析计算。无论在线性还是非线性网络、回归或分类任务、合成或真实数据上,对齐度均随信噪比单调变化,但随样本量呈非单调变化:在插值阈值附近对齐度最低。值得注意的是,更强的对齐并不意味着更优的泛化误差。该发现揭示了表征对齐对数据质量与数量的非平凡依赖,且独立于泛化性能。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Neural networks are known to develop latent representations that are $aligned$, namely structurally similar across networks trained with different architectures, training protocols, or training datasets. We study this phenomenon in a controlled setting, where we train an ensemble of networks on regression and classification tasks using training sets perturbed by independent realizations of a noise process. We show that the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the training sample size influence the alignment in qualitatively similar ways in networks trained on real-world datasets and in an extremely simple $linear$ network with a single hidden layer, for which the alignment can be estimated analytically. Across linear and nonlinear networks, regression and classification tasks, and both synthetic and real-world data, we consistently observe that alignment varies monotonically with SNR but non-monotonically with training sample size. In particular, the alignment is minimized near the interpolation threshold, and a stronger alignment does not necessarily correspond to better generalization error. These findings reveal a non-trivial dependence of alignment on data quality and quantity, decoupled from generalization performance.
Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。