Factual Knowledge in Language Models: Robustness and Anomalies under Simple Temporal Context Variations

Abstract: This paper explores the robustness of LMs to variations in the temporal context within factual knowledge. It examines whether LMs can correctly associate a temporal context with a past fact valid over a defined period, by asking them to differentiate correct from incorrect contexts. The LMs' ability to distinguish is analyzed along two dimensions: the distance of the incorrect context from the validity period and the granularity of the context. To this end, a dataset called TimeStress is introduced, enabling the evaluation of 18 diverse LMs. Results reveal that the best LM achieves a perfect distinction for only 11% of the studied facts, with errors, certainly rare, but critical that humans would not make. This work highlights the limitations of current LMs in temporal representation.