← All questions
RAGMedium· Attention· Context Window· Retrieval

A stakeholder asks: 'We gave the model strictly more in...

A strong answer explains that attention is a finite, contested resource during the prefill phase, not a free skim. When you add more information, you increase the competition for attention, which can cause the model to lose focus on critical details if they are not positioned optimally.

To make this concrete, you should present a crossover chart. This chart should plot accuracy against the gold document’s position in the context window, compared against a flat closed-book performance line. The visualization will show a trough where the accuracy dips below the closed-book baseline, demonstrating exactly where the model fails to utilize the provided information effectively.

Code playground (Python)