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Auteurs principaux: Hintze, Arend, Najam, Asadullah, Schossau, Jory
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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Accès en ligne:https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01271
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author Hintze, Arend
Najam, Asadullah
Schossau, Jory
author_facet Hintze, Arend
Najam, Asadullah
Schossau, Jory
contents Understanding the internal dynamics of Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) is crucial for advancing their interpretability and improving their design. This study introduces an innovative information-theoretic method to identify and analyze information-transfer nodes within RNNs, which we refer to as \textit{information relays}. By quantifying the mutual information between input and output vectors across nodes, our approach pinpoints critical pathways through which information flows during network operations. We apply this methodology to both synthetic and real-world time series classification tasks, employing various RNN architectures, including Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks and Gated Recurrent Units (GRUs). Our results reveal distinct patterns of information relay across different architectures, offering insights into how information is processed and maintained over time. Additionally, we conduct node knockout experiments to assess the functional importance of identified nodes, significantly contributing to explainable artificial intelligence by elucidating how specific nodes influence overall network behavior. This study not only enhances our understanding of the complex mechanisms driving RNNs but also provides a valuable tool for designing more robust and interpretable neural networks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_01271
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Identifying Information-Transfer Nodes in a Recurrent Neural Network Reveals Dynamic Representations
Hintze, Arend
Najam, Asadullah
Schossau, Jory
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Understanding the internal dynamics of Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) is crucial for advancing their interpretability and improving their design. This study introduces an innovative information-theoretic method to identify and analyze information-transfer nodes within RNNs, which we refer to as \textit{information relays}. By quantifying the mutual information between input and output vectors across nodes, our approach pinpoints critical pathways through which information flows during network operations. We apply this methodology to both synthetic and real-world time series classification tasks, employing various RNN architectures, including Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks and Gated Recurrent Units (GRUs). Our results reveal distinct patterns of information relay across different architectures, offering insights into how information is processed and maintained over time. Additionally, we conduct node knockout experiments to assess the functional importance of identified nodes, significantly contributing to explainable artificial intelligence by elucidating how specific nodes influence overall network behavior. This study not only enhances our understanding of the complex mechanisms driving RNNs but also provides a valuable tool for designing more robust and interpretable neural networks.
title Identifying Information-Transfer Nodes in a Recurrent Neural Network Reveals Dynamic Representations
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.01271