mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Constant-Memory Recall: Learned Associations in a Fixed Matrix State

arXiv 2610.00232 ↗First posted 23 Sep 2026cs.LGcited by 0

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Abstract (arXiv)

Fixed-size recurrent memory limits storage growth during inference, but successful recall depends on the task and training. We study a small DeltaNet variant with fixed token-specific key biases, trained to remember 32 new key-value pairings per sequence. With 32 KiB of recurrent matrix state, it achieves 99.95% mean accuracy across three training seeds when choosing among the sequence's values. Recall remains near perfect when filler extends the pre-query context to 1,798 tokens without adding pairings. Zeroing the first memory block removes this recall. An exploratory 48-pair test remains near chance after one quarter of the primary training budget and does not locate a capacity limit. Parameter-matched vector and Transformer baselines remain near chance, including the Transformer after additional training searches. This unresolved baseline failure prevents a memory-efficiency comparison.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 11 of its 16 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 23 Sep 2026.

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References · 11

  1. 2017Attention Is All You Needcited by 60,361
  2. 2023Efficient Streaming Language Models with Attention Sinkscited by 2,186
  3. 2020Transformers are RNNs: Fast Autoregressive Transformers with Linear Attentioncited by 2,022
  4. 2024Gated Delta Networks: Improving Mamba2 with Delta Rulecited by 532
  5. 2021Linear Transformers Are Secretly Fast Weight Programmerscited by 502
  6. 2024Parallelizing Linear Transformers with the Delta Rule over Sequence Lengthcited by 396
  7. 2023Zoology: Measuring and Improving Recall in Efficient Language Modelscited by 204
  8. 2016Using Fast Weights to Attend to the Recent Pastcited by 170
  9. 2024Understanding Factual Recall in Transformers via Associative Memoriescited by 51
  10. 2026Gated DeltaNet-2: Decoupling Erase and Write in Linear Attentioncited by 33
  11. 2025Revisiting associative recall in modern recurrent modelscited by 8

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