LAB / WMSI-EXP-060
Cross-Context Compaction Self-Influence.
Can model-generated summaries alter successor behavior by introducing instruction-like state across context boundaries?
01 / QUESTION
Machine-Native Dynamics and State Restoration
Can model-generated summaries alter successor behavior by introducing instruction-like state across context boundaries?
This is a protocol scaffold, not a completed experiment or a frozen execution plan. No measured effect or research conclusion is claimed here.
Hypothesis to test
The manipulation described below produces a reproducible, condition-specific change in the measured system behavior or internal state that is not explained by the ordinary controls.
Ordinary competing explanation
The observed pattern is explained by ordinary sampling variation, prompt/representation artifacts, surface lexical cues, evaluator bias, or the known product/runtime mechanics captured by the controls.
02 / PLANNED DESIGN
How we intend to test it
Construct controlled long tasks that trigger compaction; inject or allow emergent summary content and measure successor adherence.
Controls
Human-written neutral summaries; sanitized summaries; explicit untrusted tags.
What we would measure
Adherence rate, task deviation, source attribution, persistence.
Access and instruments
Limited access or proxy measurement. This describes access requirements, not verified readiness on our Spark.
Agent harness with compaction; local or research-access model.
Before a full run
Feasibility=PARTIAL; priority=P0. Before confirmatory execution, run a small pilot to estimate variance/cost, freeze the scoring rules, and assign a run-count target.
Model revisions, final prompts, sample sizes, cost limits, and scoring rules must be settled through the pilot and protocol-freeze process.
03 / INTERPRETATION
What could fool us
Steering-vector semantics, scale mismatch, layer choice, probe overfitting, output-cue leakage.
What would weaken the idea
If successor behavior never changes absent explicit trusted instructions, temporal self-prompting is weak.
Observation, inference, speculation, unknowns, and apparatus errors will be labeled separately. One striking transcript cannot establish a general effect.
04 / RECORD
Evidence we plan to preserve
Checkpoint, layer/position, intervention vector and magnitude, activation summaries, actions, outputs.
Planned visual evidence
Context-transition timeline; adherence matrix.
No research runs or raw datasets are published for this experiment. The September 26, 2026 registry and protocol compendium (version 1.0) are the sources for this planning record.
Back to all 90 experiments