Metonymic Circuits for Abstract Concept Grounding in Vision Transformers
Jing DingZiqiao MaJiayuan MaoJoyce ChaiFreda Shi
Oct 2026
Artificial Intelligence
Abstract
We study how Vision Transformers ground abstract concepts (e.g., angry) when training data provide limited direct referential evidence. We hypothesize a metonymic grounding mechanism in which abstract predictions are driven by concrete, interpretable anchor concepts (e.g., fire) that bridge visual signals to abstract semantics. By applying Transcoders on CLIP and DINO vision encoders, we recover intermediate features that can be associated with semantic labels for more concrete concepts, and trace their contributions in circuits underlying abstract concept recognition. Experiments on a carefully curated icon dataset reveal structured metonymic circuits, in which perceptual primitives dominate early layers and object-like anchors precede abstract targets. Images containing rendered text instead recruit a distinct perceptual-to-textual route. Causal interventions further validate that metonymic intermediates are functionally involved in grounding abstract concepts.
GAOKAO-Bench is introduced, an intuitive benchmark that employs questions from the Chinese GAOKAO examination as test samples, including both subjective and objective questions that contribute a robust evaluation benchmark for future large language models and offers valuable insights into the advantages and limitations...
Xiaotian Zhang, Chun-yan Li, Yi Zong et al.· arXiv.org· 216 citations· ⚡17
This work investigates the possibilities of using LLMs in a resume screening setting via a document retrieval framework that simulates job candidate selection and finds that the MTEs are biased, significantly favoring White-associated names in 85% of cases and female-associated names in only 11.1% of cases.
This work shows that orders of magnitude enhancement in performance could be obtained by a combination of hardware improvements and tight quantum-HPC integration and introduces high-performance architectures for quantum-probabilistic computing with custom-designed accelerators to tackle today's industry-scale classical...
Masoud Mohseni, Artur Scherer, K. Johnson et al.· arXiv.org· 121 citations· ⚡9
This paper presents a comprehensive overview of the Ultralytics YOLO family, emphasizing architectural evolution, benchmarking, deployment, and emerging directions from YOLOv5 through YOLO27, and examines detection, segmentation, depth, classification, pose, oriented detection, tracking, export, quantization, and deplo...
This work revisits schema linking when using the latest generation of large language models (LLMs) and finds empirically that newer models are adept at utilizing relevant schema elements during generation even in the presence of large numbers of irrelevant ones.
Karime Maamari, Fadhil Abubaker, Daniel Jaroslawicz et al.· arXiv.org· 109 citations· ⚡19
A novel threat is unveiled in which attackers steer the RAG system's response by injecting malicious passages into its knowledge base, enabling the attacker to steer the response without altering the user input or modifying the RAG weights.
Jiaqi Xue, Meng Zheng, Yebowen Hu et al.· arXiv.org· 109 citations· ⚡8
With $2.1 million funding from Google.org, the open-source Public Transit Intelligence Hub will unify public transit monitoring, operations, and passenger communication.
Professor Sherry Turkle’s new book, “Artificial Intimacy,” offers a withering critique of chatbots and the antisocial dynamics she believes they encourage.
We use cookies to run the site and, with your consent, for analytics and to show ads.
See our Cookie Policy.
