arXiv Computation and Language By Chiwun Yang, Xiaoyu Li

Beyond Sparse Weights: When Is Attention Compressible?

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The paper investigates when attention maps can be compressed beyond simple sparsity, arguing that large weights alone do not guarantee compressibility. It introduces metrics such as global score gaps and weighted sums of omitted values to determine token retention for a target mass, and presents a retrieval–aggregation model to predict the impact of truncation. Based on these insights, the authors propose CertKV, a training‑free compressor that allocates a tail‑summary slot per head and distributes remaining slots according to value dispersion, achieving strong performance across several benchmarks.

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