Noise-Space Attribution and Control of Chunk-Boundary Artifact

TL;DR

This paper investigates chunk-boundary artifacts in visuomotor policies, demonstrating they are controllable noise-space variables that influence task success, rather than mere execution artifacts.

Contribution

It introduces a mechanistic understanding of chunk-boundary artifacts as controllable noise variables affecting outcomes in generative visuomotor policies.

Findings

Artifact metrics separate successful and failed episodes.

Controlling noise modulates artifact systematically.

Artifact influence on success can reverse depending on context.

Abstract

Action chunking is widely used in generative visuomotor policies, yet the recurring execution discontinuities at chunk boundaries still lack a mechanistic explanation. This paper treats chunk-boundary artifact as an analyzable mechanism variable. We first show that successful and failed episodes separate stably on artifact metrics. We then show that, in stochastic action-chunked policies, fixing the observation context and changing only latent noise is sufficient to modulate artifact systematically. On the same Diffusion Policy checkpoint, comparisons among DDPM, zero-variance DDPM, and DDIM further show that this local controllability depends on whether the information path from initial noise to action output remains intact. Finally, from controlled interventions at fixed local execution states, we find that artifact changes can carry through to final outcome, and that the preferred direction can reverse even within the same task: some contexts achieve higher success under lower artifact, whereas others achieve higher success under higher artifact. In a representative high-artifact-favoring key context selected by held-out matched-continuation validation, success rate increases from 0.033 to 0.717. These results show that chunk-boundary artifact is not a mere execution-side by-product, but a variable in noise space that can be attributed, controlled, and mechanistically linked to task outcome.