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Positional Encoding

Unlike Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) that process tokens sequentially one-by-one, self-attention ditches sequential operations in favor of parallel computation and does not naturally preserve the order of the input sequence. To address this order-insensitivity, the dominant approach is to represent the sequence order as an additional input associated with each token, called a positional encoding. These encodings can be either learned during training or fixed a priori.

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Updated 2026-09-07

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Ch.2 Generative Models - Foundations of Large Language Models

Foundations of Large Language Models

Foundations of Large Language Models Course

Computing Sciences

D2L

Dive into Deep Learning @ D2L

Prep Sessions

Foundational Deep Learning Architectures: Transformers and Residual Networks @ University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Ch.1 Transformer Architecture and Components - Foundational Deep Learning Architectures: Transformers and Residual Networks @ University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Sinusoidal and Learned Positional Encodings - Foundational Deep Learning Architectures: Transformers and Residual Networks @ University of Michigan - Ann Arbor