seniorNeural Networks
What is causal masking in transformer models?
Updated May 17, 2026
Short answer
Causal masking prevents a token from attending to future tokens.
Deep explanation
It enforces autoregressive behavior by masking upper triangular attention scores, ensuring prediction depends only on past tokens.
Unlock with a Pro subscription to view this section.
View pricingReal-world example
No real-world example available yet.
Unlock with a Pro subscription to view this section.
Upgrade to ProCommon mistakes
No common mistakes listed yet.
Unlock with a Pro subscription to view this section.
Upgrade to ProFollow-up questions
No follow-up questions available yet.
Unlock with a Pro subscription to view this section.
Upgrade to Pro