K/V-Cache Interventions Dissociate Representation Alignment from Persona Expression in Decoder-Only Language Models — Paper

Abstract

We study K/V-cache interventions -- transplanting a target-conditioned K/V trajectory into a source-persona generation -- as a structured surface for persona control in decoder-only language models. Across 13 intervention configurations applied to Llama-3.1-8B for a fixed source-to-target persona pair, we report two consistent dissociations between representation-level alignment and behavioral expression, plus a common failure under position perturbations. First, all layer-band K/V replacements (early, mid, late) achieve strong local V-space alignment (V-gap 0.91, 0.89, 0.84), but only mid-layer replacement (layers 9-20) combines substantial target-marker expression with preserved lexical diversity. Second, full and mid-layer replacement induce comparable alignment (V-gap 0.94 vs. 0.89) yet produce different lexical-diversity profiles (TTR 0.65 vs. 0.77). Third, position perturbations (lag and shuffle) apply distinct operations yet uniformly suppress target-persona expression -- a common behavioral failure rather than a strict dissociation. Representation-level similarity metrics alone are thus not sufficient predictors of downstream persona expression in the regimes we study; the K/V cache emerges as a controllable but structurally constrained intervention surface. Because the transplanted trajectory carries the target's own generated token history, we characterize the intervention as trajectory-level transplantation rather than isolated persona-representation injection; a same-token-sequence control, decoding an identical token sequence under source vs. target conditioning, reproduces the sign and layer localization of the L28 representational shift, indicating the shift is not explained solely by imported token history. These findings characterize representation-behavior dissociation in a high-signal setting rather than establishing universality across models or persona pairs.

Authors 5

Yu Sun, Mengyin Lu, Cong Feng, Guangming Lu, Huimin Han

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Official page: arxiv.org/abs/2609.11020
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 5 h agohigh
Arxiv announce type: new
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 5 h agohigh
arXiv id: 2609.11020
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 5 h agohigh
Categories: cs.CL
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 5 h agohigh
PDF: arxiv.org/pdf/2609.11020
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 5 h agohigh
Primary category: cs.CL
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 5 h agohigh
Published: 11 Sept 2026
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 5 h agohigh

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T19

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5 h ago

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Authors: Yu Sun, Mengyin Lu, Cong Feng

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Value	Valid from → to	Status	Source	Confidence	Extractor
11 Sept 2026	11 Sept 2026 21:03 UTC → current	current	arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1	high	deterministic

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11 Sept 2026
New paperPaperK/V-Cache Interventions Dissociate Representation Alignment from Persona Expression in Decoder-Only Language Models
New paper: K/V-Cache Interventions Dissociate Representation Alignment from Persona Expression in Decoder-Only Language Models
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arXiv (Atom API + RSS)	rss.arxiv.org/rss/cs.CL	feed	T1· Official	3 h ago	1

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