Optimizing Sensory Neurons: Nonlinear Attention Mechanisms for Accelerated Convergence in Permutation-Invariant Neural Networks for Reinforcement Learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Muzaffar, Junaid, Ahmed, Khubaib, Frommholz, Ingo, Pervez, Zeeshan, Haq, Ahsan ul
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Muzaffar, Junaid
Ahmed, Khubaib
Frommholz, Ingo
Pervez, Zeeshan
Haq, Ahsan ul
author_facet Muzaffar, Junaid
Ahmed, Khubaib
Frommholz, Ingo
Pervez, Zeeshan
Haq, Ahsan ul
contents Training reinforcement learning (RL) agents often requires significant computational resources and prolonged training durations. To address this challenge, we build upon prior work that introduced a neural architecture with permutation-invariant sensory processing. We propose a modified attention mechanism that applies a non-linear transformation to the key vectors (K), producing enriched representations (K') through a custom mapping function. This Nonlinear Attention (NLA) mechanism enhances the representational capacity of the attention layer, enabling the agent to learn more expressive feature interactions. As a result, our model achieves significantly faster convergence and improved training efficiency, while maintaining performance on par with the baseline. These results highlight the potential of nonlinear attention mechanisms to accelerate reinforcement learning without sacrificing effectiveness.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_00691
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Optimizing Sensory Neurons: Nonlinear Attention Mechanisms for Accelerated Convergence in Permutation-Invariant Neural Networks for Reinforcement Learning
Muzaffar, Junaid
Ahmed, Khubaib
Frommholz, Ingo
Pervez, Zeeshan
Haq, Ahsan ul
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Training reinforcement learning (RL) agents often requires significant computational resources and prolonged training durations. To address this challenge, we build upon prior work that introduced a neural architecture with permutation-invariant sensory processing. We propose a modified attention mechanism that applies a non-linear transformation to the key vectors (K), producing enriched representations (K') through a custom mapping function. This Nonlinear Attention (NLA) mechanism enhances the representational capacity of the attention layer, enabling the agent to learn more expressive feature interactions. As a result, our model achieves significantly faster convergence and improved training efficiency, while maintaining performance on par with the baseline. These results highlight the potential of nonlinear attention mechanisms to accelerate reinforcement learning without sacrificing effectiveness.
title Optimizing Sensory Neurons: Nonlinear Attention Mechanisms for Accelerated Convergence in Permutation-Invariant Neural Networks for Reinforcement Learning
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.00691