The study evaluates mentalization—the capacity to infer others’ beliefs and intentions—in large language models (LLMs) using two economic games and cognitive computational modeling. Researchers tested 2,099 LLM agents from four model families (DeepSeek, GPT‑4.1, GPT‑5, Gemini 2.0 Flash) against opponents of varying sophistication, comparing their performance to 251 human participants. Results show that LLMs exhibit distinct mentalizing behaviors that vary by model provider and size, with strategic prompting generally enhancing performance; notably, GPT‑5 agents adapt their recursive reasoning depth to match opponent sophistication, outperforming humans in one task.
By Aamir Sohail, Xintong Zhong, Arkady Konovalov, Patricia L. Lockwood, Lei Zhang
arXiv:2608. 04240v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Superhuman game engines in domains like chess have made expert-level evaluations easily accessible, yet they communicate what is true without the natural-language explanations that make such expertise educationally useful to experts and non-experts alike.
By S. Ashwin Hebbar, Peiyao Sheng, Sewoong Oh, Pramod Viswanath
arXiv:2510. 10813v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly applied to domains that require reasoning about other agents' behavior, such as negotiation, policy design, and market simulation.
By Enric Junque de Fortuny, Veronica Roberta Cappelli
arXiv:2404. 02039v5 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Game environments provide rich, controllable settings that stimulate many aspects of real-world complexity.
By Sihao Hu, Tiansheng Huang, Gaowen Liu, Ramana Rao Kompella, Fatih Ilhan, Selim Furkan Tekin, Yichang Xu, Zachary Yahn, Ling Liu
The paper investigates how Large Language Model (LLM) agents can collaborate on a shared task under information asymmetry, using a table‑top version of Einstein Puzzles. It introduces a fine‑tuning‑plus‑verifier framework that equips agents with communication strategies and environmental verification signals. Results show that aligned communication is crucial for rule understanding and human trust, while a verifier improves task comprehension and promotes safer, interpretable collaboration.
By Run Peng, Ziqiao Ma, Amy Pang, Sikai Li, Zhang Xi-Jia, Yingzhuo Yu, Cristian-Paul Bara, Joyce Chai
arXiv:2510. 11503v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Games have long been a microcosm for studying planning and reasoning in both natural and artificial intelligence (AI), often focusing on expert-level or even super-human play.
By Katherine M. Collins, Cedegao E. Zhang, Lionel Wong, Mauricio Barba da Costa, Graham Todd, Adrian Weller, Samuel J. Cheyette, Thomas L. Griffiths, Joshua B. Tenenbaum
arXiv:2609.00474v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: LLMs are increasingly deployed as orchestrators that coordinate specialized subagents to solve complex tasks through natural language. However, in ma...
By Harini S I, Somesh Singh, Yaman K Singla, Rajiv Ratn Shah, David Doermann, Balaji Krishnamurthy
The paper introduces a text-based, multi-agent version of the board game Clue to test multi-step deductive reasoning in large language models (LLMs). Six LLM-based agents (GPT‑4o‑mini and Gemini‑2.5‑Flash) play turn‑based games, and a tool‑augmented approach uses a structured possibility matrix to convert implicit game state into explicit remaining possibilities, thereby offloading memory and deductive constraints from the agents. The study compares this tool‑augmented method against a baseline to assess its impact on reasoning quality and task success in a strategic reasoning environment.
By Rebecca Ansell, Autumn Toney-Wails
WordPolo is a word‑finding task that evaluates language models by having them guess an unknown target word and receive semantic similarity feedback. Participants start with no knowledge, make iterative guesses, and receive distance scores that guide them through semantic space. The study tests recent LLMs, LRMs, humans, and a heuristic on 1,500 puzzles, revealing that while solve rates vary widely, many models make meaningful progress and exhibit human‑like strategies, highlighting the importance of assessing reasoning processes, not just final accuracy.
By Tyler McDonald, Ali Emami
arXiv:2601. 19082v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed as autonomous agents that negotiate, coordinate, and act on behalf of users.
By Trung-Kiet Huynh, Dao-Sy Duy-Minh, Thanh-Bang Cao, Phong-Hao Le, Hong-Dan Nguyen, Phu-Quy Nguyen-Lam, Minh-Luan Nguyen-Vo, Hong-Phat Pham, Phu-Hoa Pham, Thien-Kim Than, Chi-Nguyen Tran, Huy Tran, Gia-Thoai Tran-Le, Alessio Buscemi, Le Hong Trang, The Anh Han
arXiv:2509. 26306v5 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Existing multi-agent learning approaches have developed interactive training environments to explicitly promote collaboration among multiple Large Language Models (LLMs), thereby constructing stronger multi-agent systems (MAS).
By Hehai Lin, Shilei Cao, Sudong Wang, Haotian Wu, Minzhi Li, Linyi Yang, Juepeng Zheng, Chengwei Qin
arXiv:2607. 06413v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language model coding agents increasingly perform open-ended data modeling and analysis.
By Hao He, Xueying Liu, Chris J. Kuhlman, Xinwei Deng