# Inhibitory Cross-Talk Enables Functional Lateralization in Attention-Coupled Latent Memory

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.03355 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.03355/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 1 of its 3 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 27 Feb 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Learning Phrase Representations using RNN Encoder-Decoder for Statistical Machine Translation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1406.1078/) (2014)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [A Miniature Brain Transformer: Thalamic Gating, Hippocampal Lateralization, Amygdaloid Salience, and Prefrontal Working Memory in Attention-Coupled Latent Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.07217/) (2026)
- [Trained Persistent Memory for Frozen Encoder--Decoder LLMs: Six Architectural Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.16413/) (2026)
- [Trained Persistent Memory for Frozen Decoder-Only LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.22329/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present a memory-augmented transformer in which attention serves simultaneously as a retrieval, consolidation, and write-back operator. The core update, A^top A V W, re-grounds retrieved values into persistent memory slots via the Gram matrix A^top A, providing a principled tripartite projection: observation space → latent memory → supervised transformation. We partition the memory into lateralized left and right banks coupled through a sign-controlled cross-talk matrix Ws, and show that the sign of this coupling is decisive for specialization. Excitatory cross-talk (s=+1) causes bank-dominance collapse: one bank monopolises all inputs and Pct → 0.5, despite lowering task loss. Inhibitory cross-talk (s=-1), motivated by the net inhibitory effect of callosal projections in human cortex, actively suppresses contralateral bank activation and achieves saturated specialization (Dsep = ± 1.00, Pct ≈ 0). On a controlled symbolic benchmark combining an episodic bijection cipher (requiring associative recall) with a strict arithmetic progression (requiring rule extraction), the inhibitory model reduces cipher-domain loss by 124× over the baseline while matching it on the arithmetic domain, confirming that persistent lateralized memory is necessary for episodic recall but not for rule-based prediction.