arXiv Computation and Language

Memory vs. Context? Influential Factors of Factual Recall in Language Models

arXiv AI
6d ago

Reasoning over Non-Parametric Memory in Multilingual LLMs: A Cognitive-Based Analysis of Relational Knowledge

The paper introduces “Rel-Bloom,” a multilingual diagnostic benchmark of 450 multiple-choice questions that tests language models’ ability to reason over relational facts supplied directly in prompts. It evaluates 43 models across six languages and two multilingual settings, revealing that accuracy drops sharply from Apply to Analyze levels, that Evaluate items remain a bottleneck even for high-performing models, and that difficulty rankings are consistent across languages. The study also finds that counterfactual contexts are generally harder than factual ones, and that removing entity identities can sometimes improve higher-level performance.

By Zohreh Abbasi Liasi, Batoul Hammoud, Anas Madkoor, Ehsaneddin Asgari
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 10

Do LLMs Make More Mistakes If They Do Not Believe the Input Data?

The study investigates whether large language models (LLMs) are more prone to errors when they doubt the plausibility of input data, a phenomenon termed context‑memory conflict. Using non‑English and low‑resource language datasets, the authors generate text from factual, counterfactual, and fictional RDF triples in English, Czech, Slovak, and Upper Sorbian, and evaluate faithfulness with both human annotations and an LLM judge (Kimi K3). Contrary to expectations, the results show only a weak context‑memory conflict: counterfactual inputs receive slightly lower faithfulness scores than factual ones, and the choice of LLM judge can significantly affect perceived conflict strength.

By Peter Kochelka, Ale\v{s} Manuel Pap\'a\v{c}ek, Vojt\v{e}ch Dvo\v{r}\'ak, Ond\v{r}ej Du\v{s}ek
arXiv Computation and Language
Nov 4

Tracing How Language Models Integrate Temporal Anchors into Factual Recall

The paper introduces anchored factual recall, where language models must choose an object for a subject–relation pair conditioned on an explicit anchor such as a time. Using causal interventions on four open‑weight models, the authors identify two parallel computational routes: a subject‑mediated route that aligns the subject representation with the queried year, and a direct route that lets the final position attend to the anchor and uses upper‑layer MLPs to bias the answer. These routes combine to determine the model’s answer, showing that factual recall involves selecting among context‑dependent alternatives rather than retrieving a single stored object.

By Ayana Niwa, Masahiro Kaneko, Kentaro Inui
arXiv Computation and Language
Oct 9

Using LMs to Model the Effects of Context and Coreference during Sentence Comprehension

The study examines how varying the context window size of GPT‑2 affects its alignment with human reading-time data. A U‑shaped relationship is found: very short windows (<20 tokens) capture local memory limits, while larger windows (500–1,000 tokens) provide the best overall fit. Counterfactual experiments that disrupt cross‑sentential coreference chains show that these long‑range coreference relations are crucial for the improved fit of larger context windows.

By Kohei Kajikawa, Lin Ai, Tatsuki Kuribayashi, Ethan Gotlieb Wilcox
arXiv AI
Jun 2

Connecting the Dots: Benchmarking Reflective Memory in Long-Horizon Dialogue

arXiv:2606. 01223v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Despite substantial progress in long-context modeling, existing benchmarks remain confined to factual memory for explicit recall, failing to measure the reflective memory required to synthesize fragmented, multimodal cues into high-level interpretations.

By Jingjie Lin, Bingbing Wang, Zihan Wang, Zhengda Jin, Weiming Qiao, Jing Li, Ruifeng Xu
arXiv AI
Sep 4

When Users Don't Ask: Benchmarking Context-Driven Memory Retrieval in Conversational Agents

The paper introduces LOCOMO-CONV, a conversational memory benchmark that expands on the existing LoCoMo dataset with four query styles—dialog, implicit, counterfactual, and composed—designed to evaluate memory systems in realistic conversational settings. Experiments across five memory systems reveal that conversational framing uncovers significant retrieval gaps missed by traditional QA benchmarks, particularly for implicit and composed queries, and that strong retrieval does not necessarily translate into higher response quality. The study also highlights silent grounding in implicit queries, where memory enhances contextual grounding without explicitly presenting the gold fact, suggesting a need for reasoning-based memory elaboration.

By Wen-Yu Chang, Yun-Nung Chen
arXiv AI
Sep 30

CoEM: Empowering Long-Context Reasoning with Commit-on-Evidence Memory

CoEM introduces a Commit-on-Evidence Memory system that learns when to compress source evidence into compact memory facts while preserving potentially useful excerpts verbatim in a pending set. The system uses a learned policy to decide whether to promote, retain, or discard each pending excerpt as new context arrives, and a frozen verifier ensures only supported facts are committed. Reinforcement learning trains this policy with step-level evidence rewards and final answer rewards, leading to consistent improvements in long-context reasoning, achieving 10.4–11.4 F1 points over the strongest baseline on 6,400-document inputs.

By Jingguang Li, Yebo Wu, Zuyi Guo, Kailang Ma, Xianjie Dai, Han Zheng, Benwang Chen, Li Li, Can Rong, Heye Huang