Extending Token Computation For LLM Reasoning

Liao Bingli, Vargas Danilo Vasconcellos. Arxiv 2024

[Paper]    
Applications Attention Mechanism Efficiency And Optimization Fine Tuning Model Architecture Pretraining Methods Reinforcement Learning Training Techniques

Large Language Models (LLMs) are pivotal in advancing natural language processing but often struggle with complex reasoning tasks due to inefficient attention distributions. In this paper, we explore the effect of increased computed tokens on LLM performance and introduce a novel method for extending computed tokens in the Chain-of-Thought (CoT) process, utilizing attention mechanism optimization. By fine-tuning an LLM on a domain-specific, highly structured dataset, we analyze attention patterns across layers, identifying inefficiencies caused by non-semantic tokens with outlier high attention scores. To address this, we propose an algorithm that emulates early layer attention patterns across downstream layers to re-balance skewed attention distributions and enhance knowledge abstraction. Our findings demonstrate that our approach not only facilitates a deeper understanding of the internal dynamics of LLMs but also significantly improves their reasoning capabilities, particularly in non-STEM domains. Our study lays the groundwork for further innovations in LLM design, aiming to create more powerful, versatile, and responsible models capable of tackling a broad range of real-world applications.

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