Abstract
Studying attention through the lens of interacting particle dynamics has shown how token clustering can emerge from the underlying dynamics. We extend this perspective to slot attention, a method for object-centric image segmentation and representation learning in which learned components obscure how much of the clustering behaviour is intrinsic to the attention dynamics. We therefore introduce simplified slot attention (SSA), a parameter-free variant whose dynamics are connected to soft $k$-means clustering and which provides a straightforward mechanistic explanation for the emergence of object-centric representations. On the Pascal VOC dataset, SSA achieves performance comparable to that of slot attention, demonstrating that competitive object-centric segmentation can be achieved without learned neural-network components.
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Publication details
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- Open access
- Green open access
Cite this article
APA 7
Joy, V., Rasal, R., Kori, A., Monod, A., & Glocker, B. (2026). Understanding Clustering in Slot Attention via Particle Dynamics. https://omanscience.com/en/articles/understanding-clustering-in-slot-attention-via-particle-dynamics
MLA 9
Joy, Vasudev, et al. "Understanding Clustering in Slot Attention via Particle Dynamics." https://omanscience.com/en/articles/understanding-clustering-in-slot-attention-via-particle-dynamics.
Chicago (author–date)
Joy, Vasudev, Rajat Rasal, Avinash Kori, Anthea Monod, and Ben Glocker. 2026. "Understanding Clustering in Slot Attention via Particle Dynamics." https://omanscience.com/en/articles/understanding-clustering-in-slot-attention-via-particle-dynamics.
Harvard
Joy, V., Rasal, R., Kori, A., Monod, A. and Glocker, B. (2026) 'Understanding Clustering in Slot Attention via Particle Dynamics', Available at: https://omanscience.com/en/articles/understanding-clustering-in-slot-attention-via-particle-dynamics.
Vancouver
Joy V, Rasal R, Kori A, Monod A, Glocker B. Understanding Clustering in Slot Attention via Particle Dynamics. https://omanscience.com/en/articles/understanding-clustering-in-slot-attention-via-particle-dynamics
IEEE
V. Joy, R. Rasal, A. Kori, A. Monod, and B. Glocker, "Understanding Clustering in Slot Attention via Particle Dynamics," https://omanscience.com/en/articles/understanding-clustering-in-slot-attention-via-particle-dynamics.