The Buffer Mechanism for Multi-Step Information Reasoning in Language Models

Zhiwei Wang, Yunji Wang, Zhongwang Zhang, Zhangchen Zhou, Hui Jin, Tianyang Hu, Jiacheng Sun, Zhenguo Li, Yaoyu Zhang, Zhi-Qin John Xu

Keywords: Large language model, buffer mechanism, thinking strategies, multi-step reasoning

Abstract: Large language models have consistently struggled with complex reasoning tasks, such as mathematical problem-solving. Investigating the internal reasoning mechanisms of these models can help us design better model architectures and training strategies, ultimately enhancing their reasoning capability. In this study, we constructed a symbolic dataset to investigate the mechanisms by which Transformer models employ vertical thinking strategy based on their inherent structure and horizontal thinking strategy based on Chain of Thought to achieve multi-step reasoning. We introduced the concept of buffer mechanism: the model stores various information in distinct buffers and selectively extracts them through the query-key matrix. We proposed a random matrix-based algorithm to enhance the model's reasoning ability, resulting in a 75\% reduction in the training time required for the GPT-2 model to achieve generalization capability on the PrOntoQA dataset. These findings provide new insights into understanding the mechanisms of large language models.

Primary Area: interpretability and explainable AI

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Submission Number: 6602