The paper investigates whether large language models (LLMs) follow Occam's Razor when performing inductive and abductive reasoning. It introduces a synthetic framework for generating questions that require both types of reasoning and a new automated metric to evaluate the simplicity and correctness of generated hypotheses. Experiments show that while LLMs can handle simple scenarios, they struggle with complex world models and producing high‑quality, simplest hypotheses, even when using advanced reasoning techniques.
By Yunxin Sun, Abulhair Saparov
arXiv:2604.27251v3 Announce Type: replace-cross
Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) acquire reasoning capabilities through shared inference patterns in pre-training data, which are further elicite...
By Xingwei Tan, Marco Valentino, Mahmud Elahi Akhter, Yuxiang Zhou, Maria Liakata, Nikolaos Aletras
The paper investigates how large language models balance instruction-following with pattern completion when the two objectives conflict. By creating dialogues where a user instruction to act in a target way T is opposed by assistant turns that demonstrate a competing pattern P, the authors measure instruction-following rates across 13 models and 16 instructions over up to 50 turns. Results show wide variability (1%–99%) in instruction adherence, with robustness influenced by instruction content, output format, and chain-of-thought reasoning, but overall instruction-following remains brittle under induction pressure.
By Carolina Camassa, Derek Shiller
arXiv:2608. 16627v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Natural language explanations (NLEs) are increasingly used as inputs, for example, as few-shot rationales that influence model behavior in in-context learning (ICL).
By Mahdi Dhaini, Adam Dejl, Juraj Vladika, Volkan \"Ozer, Barbara Plank, Gjergji Kasneci
arXiv:2608. 03550v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Chain-of-Thought (CoT) prompting remains the standard baseline for evaluating models' reasoning abilities.
By Denys Pushkin, Albert Q. Jiang, Aryo Lotfi, Colin Sandon, Emmanuel Abb\'e
The study examines how the effort expended by large reasoning models (LRMs) compares to that of humans during abductive reasoning tasks. By analyzing reaction times and reasoning traces, the authors find that LRMs and humans exhibit similar patterns of effort and error types. They also demonstrate that decoding strategies allowing models to explore multiple reasoning paths further align the models’ reasoning costs with human effort.
By Henry Arthur
The paper investigates how large language models learn new tasks in-context, comparing rule-based instruction following to example-based few-shot prompting across five diverse tasks. Results show that models generally learn more reliably from rule descriptions than from examples alone, and adding more examples does not consistently improve performance. Instruction tuning further enhances rule-based learning while preserving example-based capabilities, with rule advantages being strongest for algebraic tasks and weaker for tasks requiring distributional sensitivity or parametric knowledge.
By Xiang Fu, Seungmin Cho, Yukyung Lee, Najoung Kim
arXiv:2607. 14109v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Probing the capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) and building robust solutions for Multiple-Choice Question Answering (MCQA) remain central challenges in natural language understanding.
By Inder Preet, Shuxin Lin, Dhaval Patel
arXiv:2608. 14791v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Abductive reasoning, often characterized as inference to the best explanation, is central to explanation under uncertainty, from everyday sense-making and investigation to scientific discovery.
By Moein Salimi, Danial Parnian, Shaygan Adim, Amirmohammad Ebrahiminasab, Nima Alighardashi, Parsa Gholami, Sahand Akramipour, Mahdi Jafari Siavoshani, Mohammad Hossein Rohban
arXiv:2605. 15454v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Reasoning-trained language models often spend more tokens on harder problems, but longer chains of thought do not show whether a model is merely computing for more steps or following a different internal trajectory.
By Anders Gj{\o}lbye, Lars Kai Hansen, Sanmi Koyejo
arXiv:2509. 14704v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Benchmark saturation and training-data contamination increasingly obscure whether reported gains in large language models (LLMs) reflect genuine advances in reasoning or familiarity with recurring patterns in benchmark problems.
By Masaharu Mizumoto, Dat Nguyen, Zhiheng Han, Xingfu Li, Yo Nakawake, Le Minh Nguyen
arXiv:2607. 11696v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Self-refinement often fails to strengthen few-shot inductive reasoning in large language models.
By Huan Zhu