权重衰减过强会引发训练崩溃,因归一化与权重衰减共同导致参数范数归零。
Weight-norm Criticality: A Mechanism for Loss Spikes Induced by the Normalization and Weight Decay

- 归一化使部分权重尺度不变,权重衰减持续压缩其范数。
- 衰减系数过大时,损失曲面变尖锐,引发突然的损失飙升。
- 解释为何正则化不能过强,适合关注训练稳定性的研究者。
现有对训练不稳定的解释多聚焦于学习率临界性(如边缘稳定性),我们认为在实际深度神经网络训练中,还存在常被忽视的权重范数临界性。该临界性源于归一化(引入尺度不变性)与权重衰减(持续缩小参数范数)的相互作用。随着权重衰减系数增大,尺度不变权重的范数逐渐趋近于零,同时损失曲面的尖锐度迅速增加,导致优化动态失稳并引发突增的损失峰值。这一机制解释了为何权重惩罚能提升泛化能力却不可无限增强:过度衰减会使尺度不变权重范数越过临界边界,破坏训练稳定性。本文从权重范数临界性角度提供了损失峰值的新机理解释,并在含尺度不变组件的网络中验证了可检验预测,为该机制提供实证支持。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Most explanations of training instability focus on \emph{learning-rate criticality}, typically characterized by the Edge of Stability, beyond which optimization becomes unstable. We argue that, in practical deep neural network training, there is an additional and often overlooked \emph{weight-norm criticality}. This criticality is induced by the interaction between normalization (which introduces scale-invariant components) and weight decay (which persistently shrinks parameter norms). As the weight decay coefficient increases, the norms of scale-invariant weights are progressively driven toward zero. Meanwhile, the sharpness of the loss landscape increases rapidly, destabilizing the optimization dynamics and resulting in abrupt loss spikes. This perspective provides a rationale for why weight penalties can improve generalization yet cannot be made arbitrarily strong: excessive decay drives scale-invariant weight norms past a critical boundary and destabilizes training. Our work provides a new mechanistic understanding of loss spikes through the lens of \emph{weight-norm criticality}. Moreover, \emph{weight-norm criticality} yields testable predictions that we validate empirically in networks with scale-invariant components, providing empirical support for the proposed mechanism.
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