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Related papers: Progress Measures for Grokking on Real-world Tasks

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Grokking, a delayed generalization in neural networks after perfect training performance, has been observed in Transformers and MLPs, but the components driving it remain underexplored. We show that embeddings are central to grokking:…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-22 H. V. AlquBoj , Hilal AlQuabeh , Velibor Bojkovic , Munachiso Nwadike , Kentaro Inui

Grokking is a phenomenon where a model trained on an algorithmic task first overfits but, then, after a large amount of additional training, undergoes a phase transition to generalize perfectly. We empirically study the internal structure…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-22 William Merrill , Nikolaos Tsilivis , Aman Shukla

Neural networks sometimes exhibit grokking, a phenomenon where perfect or near-perfect performance is achieved on a validation set well after the same performance has been obtained on the corresponding training set. In this workshop paper,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-02-15 Jack Miller , Patrick Gleeson , Charles O'Neill , Thang Bui , Noam Levi

Grokking is a puzzling phenomenon in neural networks where full generalization occurs only after a substantial delay following the complete memorization of the training data. Previous research has linked this delayed generalization to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-12 Tiberiu Musat

Grokking is proposed and widely studied as an intricate phenomenon in which generalization is achieved after a long-lasting period of overfitting. In this work, we propose NeuralGrok, a novel gradient-based approach that learns an optimal…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-28 Xinyu Zhou , Simin Fan , Martin Jaggi , Jie Fu

This paper presents the first study of grokking in practical LLM pretraining. Specifically, we investigate when an LLM memorizes the training data, when its generalization on downstream tasks starts to improve, and what happens if there is…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-04 Ziyue Li , Chenrui Fan , Tianyi Zhou

We present a theoretical explanation of the ``grokking'' phenomenon, where a model generalizes long after overfitting,for the originally-studied problem of modular addition. First, we show that early in gradient descent, when the ``kernel…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-18 Mohamad Amin Mohamadi , Zhiyuan Li , Lei Wu , Danica J. Sutherland

Grokking -- the abrupt transition from memorization to generalization long after near-zero training loss -- has been studied mainly in single-task settings. We extend geometric analysis to multi-task modular arithmetic, training…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-06 Yongzhong Xu

\emph{Memorization} in neural networks lacks a precise operational definition and is often inferred from the grokking regime, where training accuracy saturates while test accuracy remains very low. We identify a previously unreported third…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-04 Hari K Prakash , Charles H Martin

We propose that the grokking phenomenon, where the train loss of a neural network decreases much earlier than its test loss, can arise due to a neural network transitioning from lazy training dynamics to a rich, feature learning regime. To…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-04-12 Tanishq Kumar , Blake Bordelon , Samuel J. Gershman , Cengiz Pehlevan

Grokking-the phenomenon where validation accuracy of neural networks on modular addition of two integers rises long after training data has been memorized-has been characterized in previous works as producing sinusoidal input weight…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-26 Anand Swaroop

We study the well-known grokking phenomena in neural networks (NNs) using a 3-layer MLP trained on 1 k-sample subset of MNIST, with and without weight decay, and discover a novel third phase -- \emph{anti-grokking} -- that occurs very late…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-06 Hari K. Prakash , Charles H. Martin

Grokking, the sudden generalization that occurs after prolonged overfitting, is a surprising phenomenon challenging our understanding of deep learning. Although significant progress has been made in understanding grokking, the reasons…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-20 Lucas Prieto , Melih Barsbey , Pedro A. M. Mediano , Tolga Birdal

Understanding neural network's (NN) generalizability remains a central question in deep learning research. The special phenomenon of grokking, where NNs abruptly generalize long after the training performance reaches a near-perfect level,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-06 Xiaotian Zhang , Yue Shang , Entao Yang , Ge Zhang

We attribute grokking, the phenomenon where generalization is much delayed after memorization, to compression. To do so, we define linear mapping number (LMN) to measure network complexity, which is a generalized version of linear region…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-10 Ziming Liu , Ziqian Zhong , Max Tegmark

This paper focuses on predicting the occurrence of grokking in neural networks, a phenomenon in which perfect generalization emerges long after signs of overfitting or memorization are observed. It has been reported that grokking can only…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-10-02 Pascal Jr. Tikeng Notsawo , Hattie Zhou , Mohammad Pezeshki , Irina Rish , Guillaume Dumas

Grokking, the sudden transition from memorization to generalization, is characterized by the emergence of low-dimensional representations, yet the mechanism underlying this organization remains elusive. We propose that intrinsic task…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-03-03 Hyeonbin Hwang , Yeachan Park

''Grokking'' is a phenomenon where a neural network first memorizes training data and generalizes poorly, but then suddenly transitions to near-perfect generalization after prolonged training. While intriguing, this delayed generalization…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-21 Zhiwei Xu , Zhiyu Ni , Yixin Wang , Wei Hu

Grokking, or delayed generalization, is a phenomenon where generalization in a deep neural network (DNN) occurs long after achieving near zero training error. Previous studies have reported the occurrence of grokking in specific controlled…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-10 Ahmed Imtiaz Humayun , Randall Balestriero , Richard Baraniuk

Grokking is the phenomenon where neural networks NNs initially fit the training data and later generalize to the test data during training. In this paper, we empirically provide a frequency perspective to explain the emergence of this…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-29 Zhangchen Zhou , Yaoyu Zhang , Zhi-Qin John Xu