@inproceedings{shafiabadi-wisniewski-2025-beyond,
    title = "Beyond Surprisal: A Dual Metric Framework for Lexical Skill Acquisition in {LLM}s",
    author = "Shafiabadi, Nazanin  and
      Wisniewski, Guillaume",
    editor = "Rambow, Owen  and
      Wanner, Leo  and
      Apidianaki, Marianna  and
      Al-Khalifa, Hend  and
      Eugenio, Barbara Di  and
      Schockaert, Steven",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Computational Linguistics",
    month = jan,
    year = "2025",
    address = "Abu Dhabi, UAE",
    publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
    url = "https://preview.aclanthology.org/fix-sig-urls/2025.coling-main.443/",
    pages = "6636--6641",
    abstract = "Many studies have explored when and how LLMs learn to use specific words, primarily by examining their learning curves. While these curves capture a model{'}s capacity to use words correctly in context, they often neglect the equally important skill of avoiding incorrect usage. In this paper, we introduce a new metric, anti-surprisal, which measures a model{'}s capacity to refrain from using words in inappropriate or unexpected contexts. By examining both correct usage and error avoidance, we offer a more comprehensive perspective on the learning dynamics of LLMs."
}