Metaphor Tracer: A Theory-Informed Analysis of Hidden States
What do a language model's hidden states say about the organization of a single text? From one forward pass, without training, we score every token position on two properties. The *aggregator* measures whether the position consolidates the whole text into a stable configuration. The *differentiator*, whether other tokens are transiently carried into its subspace as the model reads: metaphor in its root sense, transport. Constants were frozen on one discovery text; every other is confirmatory. The aggregator is not, in the classic sense, an information measure, nor a measure of salience. Across three unrelated models, as a signifier repeats, its surprisal and its attention drain while its ...
| Authors | Marc Heimann, Roxana Assadi Moghaddam, Olga Brovkina et al. |
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| Primary category | cs.AI |
| Published | 30 July 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 30 July 2026 |
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