The Rise of Parameter Specialization for Knowledge Storage in Large Language Models

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Hong, Yihuai, Zhao, Yiran, Tang, Wei, Deng, Yang, Rong, Yu, Zhang, Wenxuan
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Hong, Yihuai
Zhao, Yiran
Tang, Wei
Deng, Yang
Rong, Yu
Zhang, Wenxuan
author_facet Hong, Yihuai
Zhao, Yiran
Tang, Wei
Deng, Yang
Rong, Yu
Zhang, Wenxuan
contents Over time, a growing wave of large language models from various series has been introduced to the community. Researchers are striving to maximize the performance of language models with constrained parameter sizes. However, from a microscopic perspective, there has been limited research on how to better store knowledge in model parameters, particularly within MLPs, to enable more effective utilization of this knowledge by the model. In this work, we analyze twenty publicly available open-source large language models to investigate the relationship between their strong performance and the way knowledge is stored in their corresponding MLP parameters. Our findings reveal that as language models become more advanced and demonstrate stronger knowledge capabilities, their parameters exhibit increased specialization. Specifically, parameters in the MLPs tend to be more focused on encoding similar types of knowledge. We experimentally validate that this specialized distribution of knowledge contributes to improving the efficiency of knowledge utilization in these models. Furthermore, by conducting causal training experiments, we confirm that this specialized knowledge distribution plays a critical role in improving the model's efficiency in leveraging stored knowledge.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_17260
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Rise of Parameter Specialization for Knowledge Storage in Large Language Models
Hong, Yihuai
Zhao, Yiran
Tang, Wei
Deng, Yang
Rong, Yu
Zhang, Wenxuan
Computation and Language
Over time, a growing wave of large language models from various series has been introduced to the community. Researchers are striving to maximize the performance of language models with constrained parameter sizes. However, from a microscopic perspective, there has been limited research on how to better store knowledge in model parameters, particularly within MLPs, to enable more effective utilization of this knowledge by the model. In this work, we analyze twenty publicly available open-source large language models to investigate the relationship between their strong performance and the way knowledge is stored in their corresponding MLP parameters. Our findings reveal that as language models become more advanced and demonstrate stronger knowledge capabilities, their parameters exhibit increased specialization. Specifically, parameters in the MLPs tend to be more focused on encoding similar types of knowledge. We experimentally validate that this specialized distribution of knowledge contributes to improving the efficiency of knowledge utilization in these models. Furthermore, by conducting causal training experiments, we confirm that this specialized knowledge distribution plays a critical role in improving the model's efficiency in leveraging stored knowledge.
title The Rise of Parameter Specialization for Knowledge Storage in Large Language Models
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.17260