@inproceedings{chen-etal-2025-icleval,
    title = "{ICLE}val: Evaluating In-Context Learning Ability of Large Language Models",
    author = "Chen, Wentong  and
      Lin, Yankai  and
      Zhou, ZhenHao  and
      Huang, HongYun  and
      Jia, YanTao  and
      Cao, Zhao  and
      Wen, Ji-Rong",
    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/jlcl-multiple-ingestion/2025.coling-main.693/",
    pages = "10398--10422",
    abstract = "In-Context Learning (ICL) is a critical capability of Large Language Models (LLMs) as it empowers them to comprehend and reason across interconnected inputs. Evaluating the ICL ability of LLMs can enhance their utilization and deepen our understanding of how this ability is acquired at the training stage. However, existing evaluation frameworks primarily focus on language abilities and knowledge, often overlooking the assessment of ICL ability. In this work, we introduce the ICLEval benchmark to evaluate the ICL abilities of LLMs, which encompasses two key sub-abilities: exact copying and rule learning. Through the ICLEval benchmark, we demonstrate that ICL ability is universally present in different LLMs, and model size is not the sole determinant of ICL efficacy. Surprisingly, we observe that ICL abilities, particularly copying, develop early in the pretraining process and stabilize afterward."
}