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In-context learning (ICL), teaching a large language model (LLM) to perform a task with few-shot demonstrations rather than adjusting the model parameters, has emerged as a strong paradigm for using LLMs. While early studies primarily used…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2023-05-24 Man Luo , Xin Xu , Zhuyun Dai , Panupong Pasupat , Mehran Kazemi , Chitta Baral , Vaiva Imbrasaite , Vincent Y Zhao

The capability of in-context learning (ICL) enables large language models (LLMs) to perform novel tasks without parameter updates by conditioning on a few input-output examples. However, collecting high-quality examples for new or…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-10-29 Zihan Chen , Song Wang , Xingbo Fu , Chengshuai Shi , Zhenyu Lei , Cong Shen , Jundong Li

Large pre-trained sequence models, such as transformer-based architectures, have been recently shown to have the capacity to carry out in-context learning (ICL). In ICL, a decision on a new input is made via a direct mapping of the input…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2024-01-23 Matteo Zecchin , Kai Yu , Osvaldo Simeone

Large language models (LLMs) perform in-context learning (ICL) with minimal supervised examples, which benefits various natural language processing (NLP) tasks. One of the critical research focus is the selection of prompt demonstrations.…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-12-16 Haoyang Chen , Richong Zhang , Junfan Chen

The emergence of long-context large language models (LLMs) has enabled the use of hundreds, or even thousands, of demonstrations for in-context learning (ICL) - a previously impractical regime. This paper investigates whether traditional…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-06-17 Arjun R. Akula , Kazuma Hashimoto , Krishna Srinivasan , Aditi Chaudhary , Karthik Raman , Michael Bendersky

Recent studies have demonstrated that In-Context Learning (ICL), through the use of specific demonstrations, can align Large Language Models (LLMs) with human preferences known as In-Context Alignment (ICA), indicating that models can…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-06-18 Heyan Huang , Yinghao Li , Huashan Sun , Yu Bai , Yang Gao

Large Language Models (LLMs) have transformed NLP with their remarkable In-context Learning (ICL) capabilities. Automated assistants based on LLMs are gaining popularity; however, adapting them to novel tasks is still challenging. While…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-06-13 Anwoy Chatterjee , Eshaan Tanwar , Subhabrata Dutta , Tanmoy Chakraborty

In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive study of In-Context Learning (ICL) by addressing several open questions: (a) What type of ICL estimator is learned by large language models? (b) What is a proper performance metric for ICL and what…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-10-11 Yufeng Zhang , Fengzhuo Zhang , Zhuoran Yang , Zhaoran Wang

In-context learning (ICL) has emerged as a successful paradigm for leveraging large language models (LLMs). However, it often struggles to generalize beyond the distribution of the provided demonstrations. A recent advancement in enhancing…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-06-04 Ukyo Honda , Tatsushi Oka

Fine-tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) typically involves updating at least a few billions of parameters. A more parameter-efficient approach is Prompt Tuning (PT), which updates only a few learnable tokens, and differently, In-Context…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-10-23 Tsachi Blau , Moshe Kimhi , Yonatan Belinkov , Alexander Bronstein , Chaim Baskin

Large language models (LLMs) exhibit remarkable performance improvement through in-context learning (ICL) by leveraging task-specific examples in the input. However, the mechanisms behind this improvement remain elusive. In this work, we…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-02-23 Safoora Yousefi , Leo Betthauser , Hosein Hasanbeig , Raphaël Millière , Ida Momennejad

As one of the most exciting features of large language models (LLMs), in-context learning is a mixed blessing. While it allows users to fast-prototype a task solver with only a few training examples, the performance is generally sensitive…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2023-10-17 Zhongtao Jiang , Yuanzhe Zhang , Cao Liu , Jun Zhao , Kang Liu

In-Context Learning (ICL) enables transformer-based language models to adapt to new tasks by conditioning on demonstration examples. However, traditional example-driven in-context learning lacks explicit modules for knowledge retrieval and…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-03-31 Pan Chen , Shaohong Chen , Mark Wang , Shi Xuan Leong , Priscilla Fung , Varinia Bernales , Alan Aspuru-Guzik

Large Language Models (LLMs) excel at in-context learning (ICL), a supervised learning technique that relies on adding annotated examples to the model context. We investigate a contextual bandit version of in-context reinforcement learning…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-09-30 Giovanni Monea , Antoine Bosselut , Kianté Brantley , Yoav Artzi

Large language models (LLMs) can learn from a few demonstrations provided at inference time. We study this in-context learning phenomenon through the lens of Gaussian Processes (GPs). We build controlled experiments where models observe…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-02-13 Elif Akata , Konstantinos Voudouris , Vincent Fortuin , Eric Schulz

In-context learning (ICL) is a central capability of Transformer models, but the structures in data that enable its emergence and govern its robustness remain poorly understood. In this work, we study how the structure of pretraining tasks…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-10-01 Mary I. Letey , Jacob A. Zavatone-Veth , Yue M. Lu , Cengiz Pehlevan

In-context learning (ICL) has proven to be an effective strategy for improving the performance of large language models (LLMs) with no additional training. However, the exact mechanism behind this performance improvement remains unclear.…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-04-07 Shahriar Golchin , Mihai Surdeanu , Steven Bethard , Eduardo Blanco , Ellen Riloff

In-context learning (ICL) is often motivated by the intuition that demonstrations help because they provide correct input-output examples. However, we reveal a counterintuitive phenomenon: correctness does not guarantee exemplar utility,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-27 Chenghao Qiu , Chunli Peng , Yufeng Yang , Kuan-Hao Huang , Yi Zhou

Large language models (LLMs) like transformers demonstrate impressive in-context learning (ICL) capabilities, allowing them to make predictions for new tasks based on prompt exemplars without parameter updates. While existing ICL theories…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-11-12 Kevin Christian Wibisono , Yixin Wang

In-context learning (ICL) of large language models has proven to be a surprisingly effective method of learning a new task from only a few demonstrative examples. In this paper, we study the efficacy of ICL from the viewpoint of statistical…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-10-03 Juno Kim , Tai Nakamaki , Taiji Suzuki