# KSHSeek: Data-Driven Approaches to Mitigating and Detecting Knowledge-Shortcut Hallucinations in Generative Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.19482 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.19482/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 18 of its 26 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Mar 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 18 of 18)

- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.11401/) (2020)
- [The Pile: An 800GB Dataset of Diverse Text for Language Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.00027/) (2020)
- [Shortcut Learning in Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.07780/) (2020)
- [A Survey on Hallucination in Large Language Models: Principles, Taxonomy, Challenges, and Open Questions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.05232/) (2023)
- [Is ChatGPT a General-Purpose Natural Language Processing Task Solver?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.06476/) (2023)
- [Large Language Models Struggle to Learn Long-Tail Knowledge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.08411/) (2022)
- [SemDeDup: Data-efficient learning at web-scale through semantic deduplication](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.09540/) (2023)
- [A Stitch in Time Saves Nine: Detecting and Mitigating Hallucinations of LLMs by Validating Low-Confidence Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.03987/) (2023)
- [On Hallucination and Predictive Uncertainty in Conditional Language Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.15025/) (2021)
- [SelfCheck: Using LLMs to Zero-Shot Check Their Own Step-by-Step Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.00436/) (2023)
- [Neural Path Hunter: Reducing Hallucination in Dialogue Systems via Path Grounding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.08455/) (2021)
- [Large Language Models Can be Lazy Learners: Analyze Shortcuts in In-Context Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.17256/) (2023)
- [Mitigating Gender Bias in Captioning Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.08315/) (2020)
- [How Pre-trained Language Models Capture Factual Knowledge? A Causal-Inspired Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.16747/) (2022)
- [Finding Dataset Shortcuts with Grammar Induction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.11560/) (2022)
- [UZH_CLyp at SemEval-2023 Task 9: Head-First Fine-Tuning and ChatGPT Data Generation for Cross-Lingual Learning in Tweet Intimacy Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.01194/) (2023)
- [The Battle of LLMs: A Comparative Study in Conversational QA Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.18344/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [When Bias Pretends to Be Truth: How Spurious Correlations Undermine Hallucination Detection in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.07318/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The emergence of large language models (LLMs) has significantly advanced the development of natural language processing (NLP), especially in text generation tasks like question answering. However, model hallucinations remain a major challenge in natural language generation (NLG) tasks due to their complex causes. We systematically expand on the causes of factual hallucinations from the perspective of knowledge shortcuts, analyzing hallucinations arising from correct and defect-free data and demonstrating that knowledge-shortcut hallucinations are prevalent in generative models. To mitigate this issue, we propose a high similarity pruning algorithm at the data preprocessing level to reduce spurious correlations in the data. Additionally, we design a specific detection method for knowledge-shortcut hallucinations to evaluate the effectiveness of our mitigation strategy. Experimental results show that our approach effectively reduces knowledge-shortcut hallucinations, particularly in fine-tuning tasks, without negatively impacting model performance in question answering. This work introduces a new paradigm for mitigating specific hallucination issues in generative models, enhancing their robustness and reliability in real-world applications.