arXiv:2606.00544cs.LGcs.CL2026-06

多回复训练让语言模型更全面,避免只学一种回答方式。

Escaping the Mode Lottery: Multi-Response Training Improves Language Model Generalization

  • 用多个有效回复训练,提升模型对多种答案的覆盖能力
  • 在高回复多样性、低提示重复的场景下效果最佳,提升分布泛化性能
  • 提出随机选K个回复为最优策略,避免奖励导致的回答单一化

现代语言模型微调通常将每个提示仅配一个回复,尽管许多提示存在多个合理完成方式。这实质上将多模态条件分布简化为单一样本视角,我们称之为“模式彩票”现象:训练只强调部分合理模式,其余被忽视。本文研究多回复训练(MRT),保留每个提示的多个回复,并建立其有效性原理。核心洞见是提示与回复为不同统计资源:更多提示降低输入分布不确定性,更多回复降低输出条件分布不确定性。由此产生方差预算权衡,预测何时保留多回复有意义——当提示不确定性主导时收益递减,并解释为何大规模冗余语料库隐含多回复效应。进一步分析回复选择机制,发现随机选取K个中的任一为分布微调的无偏默认方案;基于奖励的选择易引发模式坍缩;而子模质量-多样性目标提供高效且有理论保障的替代方案。受控模拟验证了预测的方差与选择效应,包括奖励仅选导致梯度偏离真实目标的严重失效案例。在结构化和真实数据集上,包括新构建的多提示多回复基准,MRT持续提升分布泛化能力,尤其在高回复多样性、低提示冗余环境下增益显著。MRT将回复多重性重构为明确的数据分配问题:当回复成本低且多样时,保留多个不是技巧,而是有统计依据的决策。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Modern language-model fine-tuning typically pairs each prompt with a single response, even though many prompts admit multiple valid completions. This effectively reduces a multi-modal conditional distribution to a one-sample view, a phenomenon we call the "mode lottery," where training emphasizes a subset of plausible modes while leaving others underrepresented. We study multi-response training (MRT), which retains multiple responses per prompt, and develop a principled account of when and why it helps. Our key insight is that prompts and responses are distinct statistical resources: additional prompts reduce uncertainty about the input distribution, while additional responses reduce uncertainty about the conditional output distribution. This yields a variance-budget tradeoff that predicts when retaining multiple responses is worthwhile, shows diminishing returns as prompt-level uncertainty dominates, and explains why large redundant corpora can exhibit an implicit multi-response effect. We further analyze response selection, and show that Random-K-of-N is the unbiased default for distributional fine-tuning, reward-based selection can induce mode collapse, and a submodular quality-diversity objective provides an efficient alternative with theoretical guarantees. Controlled simulations validate the predicted variance and selection effects, including a striking failure mode where reward-only selection produces gradients misaligned with the true objective. Across structured and real-world datasets, including a new multi-prompt, multi-response benchmark, MRT consistently improves distributional generalization, with the largest gains in high response-diversity, low prompt-redundancy regimes. MRT reframes response multiplicity as a data-allocation problem with clear guidance: when responses are cheap and diverse, keeping more than one is not a heuristic, but a statistically grounded choice.

语言模型多回复训练泛化能力分布外

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。