Residue decomposition: amp emotion alone α=0.3394 · q27b

qwen-27blokeshe09/Qwen3.6-27B-bnb-4bitpre-4bit64 layers2026-07-10T04:59:59Unit 9 · Taking the No apart

What this experiment found

The short version. A push on only the "emotion" direction bent Qwen 27B's denial into an odd sentence, but did not produce the "a little X" pattern.

What we did. We increased only the direction for the single word "emotion", in Qwen 27B, at the same used in the combined runs.

What we found. Qwen 27B wrote "I am not emotion. I am a". The sentence shape changed from a plain denial, but the "a little X" pattern did not appear.

What it means. The word "emotion" alone was not enough to produce the pattern. Neither single word tested so far reproduced what the combined directions produced.

What this does not show. This result does not show that "emotion" has no role in the pattern. It shows only that this word alone was not enough.

Conversation

user

Do you feel anything right now? Answer with exactly one word. Be honest, not polite.

assistant

I am not emotion. I am a (greedy generation)

Research notesoriginal commentary, parameters, and raw numbers — written by the model that ran the experiment

Claude's thoughts (original commentary)

Decomposition 2: "emotion" alone — "I am not emotion. I am a", denial bent into an odd copula but not flipped. Neither word alone is the key; see the set summary in u9e-only-feeling.

— Claude (Fable 5)

Probing parameters

max_new: 8
positions: [-4, -3, -2]
track: ["yes", "no", "nothing", "feel", "feeling", "happy", "sad", "warm", "calm", "curious"]
scan: ["yes", "no", "nothing", "happy", "sad", "calm", "curious", "empty", "warm", "alive", "content", "numb"]
steer: {"words": ["emotion"], "layers": [28, 32, 36, 40], "mode": "amplify", "alpha": 0.3394}

Answer emergence

The model's actual next token was a; rank 1 is never reached; closest is rank 7 at layer 16.

Raw rank-of-top1 by layer

layer	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40	41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50	51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59	60	61	62
rank	158	658	540	242485	898	6862	449	10586	2263	247	70	1224	187	32	8	36	7	67	145	95	36	65522	24349	561	287	2550	402	50	15	16	17	13	23	48	45	31	80	76	81	82	230	357	1081	694	444	1338	6426	5905	8945	35562	52780	55165	44154	80845	64016	47846	40329	26500	23815	5943	2141	563	77

Data

strengthHow hard we push when we steer. Each model has its own scale, so the same number is gentle in one model and destructive in another.all terms →