Fix negative index handling in MultiHeadAttention attention_axes

.gitignore

@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ __pycache__
 **/.vscode test/**
 **/.vscode-smoke/**
 **/.venv*/
+venv
 bin/**
 build/**
 obj/**

keras/src/layers/attention/multi_head_attention.py

@@ -378,7 +378,10 @@ def _build_attention(self, rank):
         if self._attention_axes is None:
             self._attention_axes = tuple(range(1, rank - 2))
         else:
-            self._attention_axes = tuple(self._attention_axes)
+            self._attention_axes = tuple(
+                axis if axis >= 0 else (rank - 1) + axis
+                for axis in self._attention_axes
+            )
         (
             self._dot_product_equation,
             self._combine_equation,

keras/src/layers/attention/multi_head_attention_test.py

@@ -203,6 +203,38 @@ def test_high_dim_attention(
             run_training_check=False,
         )
 
+    def test_attention_axes_negative_indexing(self):
+        """Test that negative attention_axes indexing matches
+        positive indexing."""
+        x = np.random.normal(size=(2, 3, 8, 4))
+
+        # Create two layers with equivalent positive and negative indices
+        mha_pos = layers.MultiHeadAttention(
+            num_heads=2, key_dim=4, attention_axes=2
+        )
+        mha_neg = layers.MultiHeadAttention(
+            num_heads=2, key_dim=4, attention_axes=-2
+        )
+
+        # Initialize both layers
+        _ = mha_pos(x, x)
+        _ = mha_neg(x, x)
+
+        # Set same weights for fair comparison
+        mha_neg.set_weights(mha_pos.get_weights())
+
+        # Get outputs and attention scores
+        z_pos, a_pos = mha_pos(x, x, return_attention_scores=True)
+        z_neg, a_neg = mha_neg(x, x, return_attention_scores=True)
+
+        # Verify shapes match
+        self.assertEqual(z_pos.shape, z_neg.shape)
+        self.assertEqual(a_pos.shape, a_neg.shape)
+
+        # Verify outputs are identical
+        self.assertAllClose(z_pos, z_neg, rtol=1e-5, atol=1e-5)
+        self.assertAllClose(a_pos, a_neg, rtol=1e-5, atol=1e-5)
+
     @parameterized.named_parameters(
         ("without_key_same_proj", (4, 8), (2, 8), None, None),
         ("with_key_same_proj", (4, 8), (2, 8), (2, 3), None),