arXiv Computation and Language

DiSCo: A Distribution-First Steering and Cultural Prior Evaluation Framework for Measuring Cultural Preference Bias in LLMs

arXiv Computation and Language
Aug 31

CultureConverse: A Multilingual Multi-turn Simulation Harness for Culturally Grounded Assistance in East and Southeast Asia

arXiv:2608.28405v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Current cultural evaluations for large language models (LLMs) often reduce culture to single-turn factual recall via MCQs, failing to capture a common...

By Bryan Chen Zhengyu Tan, Weihua Zheng, Thong T. Doan, Bich Ngoc Doan, Jia Wang Peh, Xiaoyuan Yi, Jing Yao, Xing Xie, Nancy F. Chen, Zhengyuan Liu, JinYeong Bak, Wafi Shamdi, Soo Kai Chie, Liew Yu Siong, Aina Azyyati Binti Mohamad Rezal, Lew Yan Yan Vanessa, Huadan Wu, Dylan Raharja, Nadya Yuki Wangsajaya, Akane Fukushige, Kazushi Kato, Koji Inoue, Tatsuya Kawahara, Jaehyung Seo, Dongjun Kim, Seungyoon Lee, Zi Haur Pang, Rui Yang Tan, Charibeth Ko Cheng, Maria Regina Justina Estuar, Jann Railey Montalan, Pham Minh Duc, Roy Ka-Wei Lee
arXiv Computation and Language
Aug 31

Why are all LLMs Obsessed with Japanese Culture? On the Hidden Cultural and Regional Biases of LLMs

The paper investigates cultural biases in large language models (LLMs) by introducing the Culture-Related Open Questions (CROQ) dataset, which contains 24‑language questions about generic culture. Experiments reveal that LLMs disproportionately favor Japan in their responses, especially when prompted in high‑resource languages, while low‑resource languages tend to highlight countries where the language is official. The study also finds that these biases emerge after supervised fine‑tuning rather than during pre‑training.

By Joseba Fernandez de Landa, Carla Perez-Almendros, Jose Camacho-Collados
arXiv Computation and Language
2d ago

Cultural Alignment in Large Language Models Using Soft Prompt Tuning

The paper proposes a method for culturally aligning large language models (LLMs) using soft prompt tuning optimized via Differential Evolution (DE). Unlike traditional fine‑tuning or reinforcement learning, this approach keeps model weights frozen and requires no preference data, instead leveraging aggregated survey scores from Hofstede's Value Survey Module (VSM13). Experiments on four countries and four instruction‑tuned models show that DE‑optimized prompts reduce cultural discrepancy, improve agreement with the World Values Survey, and are preferred in blinded pairwise evaluations by LLM judges.

By Reem I. Masoud, Martin Ferianc, Philip Treleaven, Miguel Rodrigues
arXiv AI
Aug 21

DiverValue-Bench: A Benchmark and Fine-Tuning Framework for Aligning Large Language Models with Diverse Human Values

arXiv:2509. 08022v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Aligning large language models (LLMs) with diverse human values is essential for safe and effective deployment, yet existing benchmarks often overlook cultural and demographic variation.

By Yao Liang, Dongcheng Zhao, Feifei Zhao, Guobin Shen, Yuwei Wang, Dongqi Liang, Yi Zeng
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 1

CoCoA: Context-Conditional Cultural Alignment for Large Language Models

CoCoA (Context-Conditional Cultural Alignment) is a framework designed to mitigate cultural bias in large language models by learning context-conditional behavior. It trains on entity pairs under both culturally cued and neutral contexts, using a contrastive alignment objective combined with calibration, drift regularization, and goal-aware gradient reconciliation. Evaluations on CAMeL and Camellia across ten languages and four LLMs show that CoCoA reduces the Cultural Bias Score from 43 to 24 on average while keeping near-neutral preferences at 50.2, with minimal impact on general performance.

By Kyungdon Lee, Wei Xu, Alan Ritter, Dong-Ho Lee, JinYeong Bak
arXiv AI
Jun 8

The Masked Advantage: Uncovering Local-Language Access to Cultural Knowledge in LLMs

arXiv:2606. 07422v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language models are increasingly used to answer culturally grounded questions across languages, yet it remains unclear whether local cultural knowledge is better accessed through English or the local language.

By Yang Zhang, Xiao Fei, Amr Mohamed, Sarah Almeida Carneiro, Mersin Konomi, Mingmeng Geng, Ahmed Asaad, Guokan Shang, Michalis Vazirgiannis