mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Token Homogenization under Positional Bias

arXiv 2508.17126 ↗First posted 23 Aug 2025cs.CL cs.AI cs.LGcited by 0

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Abstract (arXiv)

This paper investigates token homogenization - the convergence of token representations toward uniformity across transformer layers and its relationship to positional bias in large language models. We empirically examine whether homogenization occurs and how positional bias amplifies this effect. Through layer-wise similarity analysis and controlled experiments, we demonstrate that tokens systematically lose distinctiveness during processing, particularly when biased toward extremal positions. Our findings confirm both the existence of homogenization and its dependence on positional attention mechanisms.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 15 of its 32 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 23 Aug 2025.

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References · 15

  1. 2023LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Modelscited by 14,132
  2. 2019BERTScore: Evaluating Text Generation with BERTcited by 5,512
  3. 2023Lost in the Middle: How Language Models Use Long Contextscited by 3,455
  4. 2021MAUVE: Measuring the Gap Between Neural Text and Human Text using Divergence Frontierscited by 470
  5. 2021Attention is Not All You Need: Pure Attention Loses Rank Doubly Exponentially with Depthcited by 419
  6. 2023A mathematical perspective on Transformerscited by 164
  7. 2025Why do LLMs attend to the first token?cited by 127
  8. 2022Not too little, not too much: a theoretical analysis of graph (over)smoothingcited by 106
  9. 2022Understanding convolution on graphs via energiescited by 59
  10. 2025On the Emergence of Position Bias in Transformerscited by 59
  11. 2022MAUVE Scores for Generative Models: Theory and Practicecited by 36
  12. 2024Serial Position Effects of Large Language Modelscited by 30
3 more
  1. 2021Divergence Frontiers for Generative Models: Sample Complexity, Quantization Effects, and Frontier Integralscited by 18
  2. 2024Geometric Signatures of Compositionality Across a Language Model's Lifetimecited by 16
  3. 2025Beyond Early-Token Bias: Model-Specific and Language-Specific Position Effects in Multilingual LLMscited by 5

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