从模型权重中恢复数据流的隐含状态,发现同状态内预测效果更好。
Latent States in Neural Networks: Recovering the Temporal Structure of Drifting Data from Model Weights

- 用隐马尔可夫模型分析连续训练权重轨迹,识别数据漂移的隐含阶段。
- 同一状态内的模型迁移性能显著优于跨状态迁移,且优于等长窗口划分。
- 该状态结构与数据分布变化相关,能捕捉超越分布差异的深层转移规律。
时间漂移的数据流可能以离散阶段而非连续方式演变。本文研究能否通过训练该流的模型权重轨迹,利用隐马尔可夫模型(HMM)恢复这些阶段。在两个已知随时间漂移的领域——基于Fakeddit数据集的多模态虚假信息检测和基于Yelp数据集的情感分析中,对连续时间窗口训练分类器,并对对其对齐后的权重轨迹拟合HMM,成功恢复出将时间线划分为一致阶段的隐状态。在两个数据集中,共享训练窗口状态的测试窗口,其模型泛化能力均显著优于跨状态窗口。该状态内迁移优势在控制时间邻近性后仍存在,且略优于简单等长分段的结果。尽管状态仅由权重估计,但其与数据类别分布的变化相关性,强于与权重空间几何结构的相关性。在去除类别偏移和滞后影响后,状态内优势仍显著高于置换基线,在两项任务中均复现,但在标签分布更稳定的Yelp数据上效应减弱。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
A temporally drifting data stream may pass through discrete regimes rather than changing continuously. We ask whether such regimes are recoverable from the weights of models trained on the stream, using a hidden Markov model (HMM) fit to the chronologically ordered trajectory of those weights. We study this question in two domains known to drift over time: multimodal misinformation detection, using the Fakeddit dataset; and sentiment analysis, using the Yelp dataset. We train classifiers on consecutive temporal windows and fit an HMM to the trajectory of their aligned weights, recovering latent states that partition each timeline into coherent phases. On both datasets, classifiers generalize better to data from windows sharing the state of their training window than to windows across state boundaries. This within-state transfer advantage survives a control for temporal proximity and modestly exceeds the advantage recovered by a naive partition into contiguous states of equal size. Although the states are estimated solely from model weights, they correlate more strongly with shifts in the data's class distribution than with the weight-space geometry used to estimate them. After class divergence and lag are residualized out, the within-state advantage exceeds its permutation null on both tasks, indicating that the states recover structure relevant to transfer beyond the data distribution. Every effect replicates on both tasks but is attenuated on Yelp, whose label distribution is more temporally stable.
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