Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Fukuhata, Shion, Kano, Yoshinobu
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.04966
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866910905352060928
author Fukuhata, Shion
Kano, Yoshinobu
author_facet Fukuhata, Shion
Kano, Yoshinobu
contents When fine-tuning BERT models for specific tasks, it is common to select part of the final layer's output and input it into a newly created fully connected layer. However, it remains unclear which part of the final layer should be selected and what information each dimension of the layers holds. In this study, we comprehensively investigated the effectiveness and redundancy of token vectors, layers, and dimensions through BERT fine-tuning on GLUE tasks. The results showed that outputs other than the CLS vector in the final layer contain equivalent information, most tasks require only 2-3 dimensions, and while the contribution of lower layers decreases, there is little difference among higher layers. We also evaluated the impact of freezing pre-trained layers and conducted cross-fine-tuning, where fine-tuning is applied sequentially to different tasks. The findings suggest that hidden layers may change significantly during fine-tuning, BERT has considerable redundancy, enabling it to handle multiple tasks simultaneously, and its number of dimensions may be excessive.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_04966
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Few Dimensions are Enough: Fine-tuning BERT with Selected Dimensions Revealed Its Redundant Nature
Fukuhata, Shion
Kano, Yoshinobu
Computation and Language
When fine-tuning BERT models for specific tasks, it is common to select part of the final layer's output and input it into a newly created fully connected layer. However, it remains unclear which part of the final layer should be selected and what information each dimension of the layers holds. In this study, we comprehensively investigated the effectiveness and redundancy of token vectors, layers, and dimensions through BERT fine-tuning on GLUE tasks. The results showed that outputs other than the CLS vector in the final layer contain equivalent information, most tasks require only 2-3 dimensions, and while the contribution of lower layers decreases, there is little difference among higher layers. We also evaluated the impact of freezing pre-trained layers and conducted cross-fine-tuning, where fine-tuning is applied sequentially to different tasks. The findings suggest that hidden layers may change significantly during fine-tuning, BERT has considerable redundancy, enabling it to handle multiple tasks simultaneously, and its number of dimensions may be excessive.
title Few Dimensions are Enough: Fine-tuning BERT with Selected Dimensions Revealed Its Redundant Nature
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.04966