Dynamical similarity analysis can identify compositional dynamics developing in RNNs

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Main Authors: Guilhot, Quentin, Wójcik, Michał, Achterberg, Jascha, Costa, Rui Ponte
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Guilhot, Quentin
Wójcik, Michał
Achterberg, Jascha
Costa, Rui Ponte
author_facet Guilhot, Quentin
Wójcik, Michał
Achterberg, Jascha
Costa, Rui Ponte
contents Methods for analyzing representations in neural systems have become a popular tool in both neuroscience and mechanistic interpretability. Having measures to compare how similar activations of neurons are across conditions, architectures, and species, gives us a scalable way of learning how information is transformed within different neural networks. In contrast to this trend, recent investigations have revealed how some metrics can respond to spurious signals and hence give misleading results. To identify the most reliable metric and understand how measures could be improved, it is going to be important to identify specific test cases which can serve as benchmarks. Here we propose that the phenomena of compositional learning in recurrent neural networks (RNNs) allows us to build a test case for dynamical representation alignment metrics. By implementing this case, we show it enables us to test whether metrics can identify representations which gradually develop throughout learning and probe whether representations identified by metrics are relevant to computations executed by networks. By building both an attractor- and RNN-based test case, we show that the new Dynamical Similarity Analysis (DSA) is more noise robust and identifies behaviorally relevant representations more reliably than prior metrics (Procrustes, CKA). We also show how test cases can be used beyond evaluating metrics to study new architectures. Specifically, results from applying DSA to modern (Mamba) state space models, suggest that, in contrast to RNNs, these models may not exhibit changes to their recurrent dynamics due to their expressiveness. Overall, by developing test cases, we show DSA's exceptional ability to detect compositional dynamical motifs, thereby enhancing our understanding of how computations unfold in RNNs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_24070
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Dynamical similarity analysis can identify compositional dynamics developing in RNNs
Guilhot, Quentin
Wójcik, Michał
Achterberg, Jascha
Costa, Rui Ponte
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Neurons and Cognition
Methods for analyzing representations in neural systems have become a popular tool in both neuroscience and mechanistic interpretability. Having measures to compare how similar activations of neurons are across conditions, architectures, and species, gives us a scalable way of learning how information is transformed within different neural networks. In contrast to this trend, recent investigations have revealed how some metrics can respond to spurious signals and hence give misleading results. To identify the most reliable metric and understand how measures could be improved, it is going to be important to identify specific test cases which can serve as benchmarks. Here we propose that the phenomena of compositional learning in recurrent neural networks (RNNs) allows us to build a test case for dynamical representation alignment metrics. By implementing this case, we show it enables us to test whether metrics can identify representations which gradually develop throughout learning and probe whether representations identified by metrics are relevant to computations executed by networks. By building both an attractor- and RNN-based test case, we show that the new Dynamical Similarity Analysis (DSA) is more noise robust and identifies behaviorally relevant representations more reliably than prior metrics (Procrustes, CKA). We also show how test cases can be used beyond evaluating metrics to study new architectures. Specifically, results from applying DSA to modern (Mamba) state space models, suggest that, in contrast to RNNs, these models may not exhibit changes to their recurrent dynamics due to their expressiveness. Overall, by developing test cases, we show DSA's exceptional ability to detect compositional dynamical motifs, thereby enhancing our understanding of how computations unfold in RNNs.
title Dynamical similarity analysis can identify compositional dynamics developing in RNNs
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Neurons and Cognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.24070