Memorizing Long-tail Data Can Help Generalization Through Composition

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Zhou, Mo, Ma, Haoyang, Ge, Rong
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Zhou, Mo
Ma, Haoyang
Ge, Rong
author_facet Zhou, Mo
Ma, Haoyang
Ge, Rong
contents Deep learning has led researchers to rethink the relationship between memorization and generalization. In many settings, memorization does not hurt generalization due to implicit regularization and may help by memorizing long-tailed examples. In this paper, we consider the synergy between memorization and simple composition -- the ability to make correct prediction on a combination of long-tailed features. Theoretically, we show that for a linear setting, memorization together with composition can help the model make correct predictions on rare test examples that require a combination of long-tailed features, even if such combinations were never observed in the training data. Experiments on neural network architecture on simple data show that the theoretical insight extends beyond the linear setting, and we further observe that the composition capability of the model depends on its architecture.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_16322
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Memorizing Long-tail Data Can Help Generalization Through Composition
Zhou, Mo
Ma, Haoyang
Ge, Rong
Machine Learning
Deep learning has led researchers to rethink the relationship between memorization and generalization. In many settings, memorization does not hurt generalization due to implicit regularization and may help by memorizing long-tailed examples. In this paper, we consider the synergy between memorization and simple composition -- the ability to make correct prediction on a combination of long-tailed features. Theoretically, we show that for a linear setting, memorization together with composition can help the model make correct predictions on rare test examples that require a combination of long-tailed features, even if such combinations were never observed in the training data. Experiments on neural network architecture on simple data show that the theoretical insight extends beyond the linear setting, and we further observe that the composition capability of the model depends on its architecture.
title Memorizing Long-tail Data Can Help Generalization Through Composition
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.16322