# Harnessing the Unseen: The Hidden Influence of Intrinsic Knowledge in Long-Context Language Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.08202 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.08202/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 42 of its 55 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Apr 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 42)

- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [The Llama 3 Herd of Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.21783/) (2024)
- [Qwen2.5 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.15115/) (2024)
- [RoFormer: Enhanced Transformer with Rotary Position Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.09864/) (2021)
- [HotpotQA: A Dataset for Diverse, Explainable Multi-hop Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.09600/) (2018)
- [LongBench: A Bilingual, Multitask Benchmark for Long Context Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.14508/) (2023)
- [RULER: What's the Real Context Size of Your Long-Context Language Models?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.06654/) (2024)
- [When Not to Trust Language Models: Investigating Effectiveness of Parametric and Non-Parametric Memories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.10511/) (2022)
- [Evaluating Very Long-Term Conversational Memory of LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.17753/) (2024)
- [Extending Context Window of Large Language Models via Positional Interpolation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.15595/) (2023)
- [How Much Knowledge Can You Pack Into the Parameters of a Language Model?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.08910/) (2020)
- [YaRN: Efficient Context Window Extension of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.00071/) (2023)
- [How Can We Know When Language Models Know? On the Calibration of Language Models for Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.00955/) (2020)
- [PyramidKV: Dynamic KV Cache Compression based on Pyramidal Information Funneling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.02069/) (2024)
- [MInference 1.0: Accelerating Pre-filling for Long-Context LLMs via Dynamic Sparse Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.02490/) (2024)
- [∞Bench: Extending Long Context Evaluation Beyond 100K Tokens](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.13718/) (2024)
- [Entity-Based Knowledge Conflicts in Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.05052/) (2021)
- [Adaptive Chameleon or Stubborn Sloth: Revealing the Behavior of Large Language Models in Knowledge Conflicts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.13300/) (2023)
- [Knowledge Conflicts for LLMs: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.08319/) (2024)
- [Ada-KV: Optimizing KV Cache Eviction by Adaptive Budget Allocation for Efficient LLM Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.11550/) (2024)
- [L-Eval: Instituting Standardized Evaluation for Long Context Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.11088/) (2023)
- [BABILong: Testing the Limits of LLMs with Long Context Reasoning-in-a-Haystack](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.10149/) (2024)
- [InfLLM: Training-Free Long-Context Extrapolation for LLMs with an Efficient Context Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.04617/) (2024)
- [Rich Knowledge Sources Bring Complex Knowledge Conflicts: Recalibrating Models to Reflect Conflicting Evidence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.13701/) (2022)
- [BooookScore: A systematic exploration of book-length summarization in the era of LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.00785/) (2023)
- [LLM Maybe LongLM: Self-Extend LLM Context Window Without Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.01325/) (2024)
- [HELMET: How to Evaluate Long-Context Language Models Effectively and Thoroughly](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.02694/) (2024)
- [LM-Infinite: Zero-Shot Extreme Length Generalization for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.16137/) (2023)
- [The Earth is Flat because...: Investigating LLMs' Belief towards Misinformation via Persuasive Conversation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.09085/) (2023)
- [Not All Heads Matter: A Head-Level KV Cache Compression Method with Integrated Retrieval and Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.19258/) (2024)

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

- ["Lost-in-the-Later": Framework for Quantifying Contextual Grounding in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.05424/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recent advances in long-context language models (LCLMs), designed to handle extremely long contexts, primarily focus on utilizing external contextual information, often leaving the influence of language models' parametric knowledge underexplored. In this work, we firstly investigate how this parametric knowledge affects content generation and demonstrate that its impact becomes increasingly pronounced as context length extends. Furthermore, we show that the model's ability to utilize parametric knowledge, which we call parametric recall ability, does not improve simultaneously with its ability to leverage contextual knowledge through extrinsic retrieval ability. Moreover, better extrinsic retrieval ability can interfere with the model's parametric recall ability, limiting its full potential. To bridge this gap, we design a simple yet effective Hybrid Needle-in-a-Haystack test that evaluates models based on their capabilities across both abilities, rather than solely emphasizing extrinsic retrieval ability. Our experimental results reveal that Qwen-2.5 models significantly outperform Llama-3.1 models, demonstrating superior potential to combine various abilities. Moreover, even the more powerful Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct model fails to exhibit better performance, highlighting the importance of evaluating models from a dual-ability perspective.