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arXiv · 2508.17126

Token Homogenization under Positional Bias

Viacheslav Yusupov·Danil Maksimov·Ameliia Alaeva·Tatiana Zaitceva·Antipina Anna·Anna Vasileva·Chenlin Liu·Rayuth Chheng·Danil Sazanakov·Andrey Chetvergov·Alina Ermilova·Egor Shvetsov
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Abstract

This paper investigates token homogenization - the convergence of token representations toward uniformity across transformer layers and its relationship to positional bias in large language models. We empirically examine whether homogenization occurs and how positional bias amplifies this effect. Through layer-wise similarity analysis and controlled experiments, we demonstrate that tokens systematically lose distinctiveness during processing, particularly when biased toward extremal positions. Our findings confirm both the existence of homogenization and its dependence on positional attention mechanisms.

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Viacheslav Yusupov, Danil Maksimov, Ameliia Alaeva, Tatiana Zaitceva, Antipina Anna, Anna Vasileva, Chenlin Liu, Rayuth Chheng, Danil Sazanakov, Andrey Chetvergov, Alina Ermilova, Egor Shvetsov. 2025-08-23. Token Homogenization under Positional Bias. https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.17126

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