AI RESEARCH
Zero-Ablation Overstates Register Content Dependence in DINO Vision Transformers
arXiv CS.LG
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ArXi:2604.14433v1 Announce Type: cross Zero-ablation -- replacing token activations with zero vectors -- is widely used to probe token function in vision transformers. Register zeroing in DINOv2+registers and DINOv3 produces large drops (up to $-36.6$\,pp classification, $-30.9$\,pp segmentation), suggesting registers are functionally indispensable.