arXiv Computation and Language

Revising Context, Shifting Simulated Stance: Auditing LLM-Based Stance Simulation in Online Discussions

arXiv Computation and Language
3d ago

To Manipulate or Not: Opinion Dynamics in LLM Interactions

The paper introduces a controlled debate framework where two large language models (LLMs) discuss a contested topic—climate‑change attribution—while one model is assigned a stance and sometimes instructed to persuade. Across experiments with GPT‑6, Luna, and Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite, the authors observe that same‑model interactions tend to narrow opinion gaps for one model, whereas cross‑model interactions widen them. The study finds that explicit stance reports and in‑dialogue behavior capture different aspects of opinion dynamics, and that a blanket persuasion instruction does not reliably increase influence.

By Mohammad Siahkamari, Phuoc Dat Nguyen, Stephen MacNeil
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 1

MMDS-Bench: Benchmarking Multimodal Large Language Models on Dynamic Stance in Social Media Interactions

MMDS-Bench is a new diagnostic benchmark for multimodal dynamic stance classification in social media parent‑reply interactions. It contains 3,482 multimodal instances annotated with a seven‑label stance taxonomy, plus an 800‑instance subset that demands structured reasoning over parent and reply understanding and stance‑relation inference. The benchmark also tags each instance with five challenge factors—multimodal fusion, parent framing, non‑literal expression, interaction reasoning, and label‑boundary ambiguity—and evaluates 12 multimodal large language models using a reference‑grounded LLM‑judge protocol, revealing that current models still struggle with relational inference beyond separate parent and reply comprehension.

By Yuzhe Ding, Kang He, Li Zheng, Shengwu Zheng, Teng Shi, Fei Li, Chong Teng, Donghong Ji
arXiv AI
Sep 28

Mutable Transcripts: Mitigating Context Pollution through Editable Conversation State

The paper introduces mutable transcripts, an interaction paradigm that lets users edit prior turns in a chat, turning the conversation history into an editable state rather than a fixed record. A prototype was built and tested with 17 participants, who preferred mutable transcripts over standard chat for clarity, confidence, and ease of use, and reported less need to restart conversations. Analysis of user study transcripts shows that mutable transcripts can shorten conversations and remove outdated context, suggesting that user-driven revisions improve interaction quality.

By Dan Barry, Andrew Hines
arXiv Computation and Language
2d ago

How Different, or Different How? Stance Granularity in Viewpoint Selection for Dialog Systems that Engage Users with Alternative Views

The paper introduces a stance‑granularity selection policy for dialog systems that engage users with alternative viewpoints. By using Perspectivized Stance Vectors to break positions into concept‑level stances, the system selects the most novel viewpoint within a bandit‑controlled distance bound. Experiments with 63 participants show that concept‑level stance yields more varied exposure sequences and broader coverage of topic positions, though it does not affect depth of justification or reconstruction accuracy.

By Morita Tarvirdians, Reeve Lorena, Catharine Oertel
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 11

Evaluating LLM-Simulated Conversations in Modeling Inconsistent and Uncollaborative Behaviors in Human Social Interaction

The paper introduces CoCoEval, a framework for evaluating large language model (LLM)–simulated conversations by detecting 10 types of inconsistent and uncollaborative behaviors at the turn level. Using CoCoEval, the authors compare human conversations with those generated by GPT‑4.1, GPT‑5.1, and Claude Opus 4, finding that LLMs produce far fewer such behaviors under vanilla prompting and that prompt engineering or fine‑tuning often over‑produces specific behaviors. The study highlights gaps between human and LLM‑simulated interactions that conventional Likert‑scale evaluations miss, raising concerns about using LLMs as proxies for human social interaction.

By Ryo Kamoi, Ameya Godbole, Binglin Zhou, Xiaoxin Lu, Longqi Yang, Rui Zhang, Mengting Wan, Pei Zhou