Structured Features Overfit Where Random Features Grok

📅 2026-09-14
📈 Citations: 0
Influential: 0
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🤖 AI Summary
研究探讨了在结构化特征图上,过参数化的岭回归不会出现记忆后泛化的延迟现象,并通过实验展示了特征几何而非容量比对模型性能的影响。
📝 Abstract
Xu, Vardi and Safran (ICML 2026) prove that over-parameterized ridge regression over an unstructured random Gaussian feature map groks, with the delay between memorization and generalization growing as $1/λ$ in the weight decay. We show that on a structured feature map the same delay does not appear. For a band-limited Fourier feature map over $\mathbb{Z}_p^2$ carrying a single-character target that lies inside the expressible class, enlarging the band at fixed positive weight decay drives peak held-out accuracy monotonically from $1.00$ to $0.07$, with no memorize-then-generalize regime anywhere along the sweep. The degradation is not an interpolation effect. It sets in at capacity ratio $q/n = 0.638$, far below the interpolation threshold, on separate grounds from the exact null space that appears above it. What does have a sharp boundary is the active support. Holding the nominal dimension fixed and masking the band back to $1089$ active modes restores held-out accuracy of $1.000$ with zero variance across seeds, while the full $4225$-mode band collapses to $0.185$. The number of active modes acts through the teacher-weighted spectrum of the empirical Gram matrix and not through the capacity ratio, which makes this a statement about feature geometry and not a restatement of double descent.
Problem

Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.

structured feature map
over-parameterized ridge regression
memorization and generalization
band-limited Fourier feature map
held-out accuracy
Innovation

Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.

structured feature map
over-parameterized ridge regression
capacity ratio
active support
feature geometry
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Miloud Bessafi
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