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:2610.23157v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used as computational models of human behavior. Recent models such as Centaur have advanced this goal by...
By Hikaru Asano, Hidezo Suganuma, Ryutaro Mori, Yukino Baba
arXiv:2609.38334v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed as agents for multi-step decision-making, yet transfer poorly to unseen environments. World-mode...
By Yuhan Guo, Jinming Liu, Liang Xu, Ziqiang Li, Jianguo Huang, Zhicheng Wang, Hu Zhu, Qiuyu Chen, Yuntao Wei, Xin Jin, Wenjun Zeng
The paper introduces ASPIRE, a benchmark that challenges language model agents to self‑evolve from vague, natural‑language goals without explicit evaluation metrics. In ASPIRE, agents must interpret the goal, select data and update strategies, and decide when to evaluate, all while the downstream tasks remain hidden. Experiments show that while agents can complete training loops, weight‑level improvements are sparse and unstable, and the best evolved harness still falls short of a strong engineered baseline.
By Yuhao Wu, Jingyuan Zhang, Jiajun Shi, Yuxuan Zhang, Xinping Lei, Junting Zhou, Zexuan Wang, Yuchen Wu, Huan Zhou, Duo Wang, Yinzhu Piao, Yongchang Peng, Yunfeng Shi, Jin Chen, Zuo Wang, Jinkai Liu, Jiaheng Liu, Wenxuan Zhang, Shen Yan, Wenhao Huang, Ge Zhang
Many important forms of human learning begin with a vague goal, such as "become a better physicist" or "improve at research." Learners must interpret the goal, identify capability gaps, decide how to...
The paper investigates whether large language models (LLMs) possess intrinsic value systems and how to quantify and align them. By projecting responses from 106 LLMs and 95,000 human survey profiles into a shared sociological space, the authors confirm that LLMs do have values, though these values form a concentrated, idealized core rather than mirroring human diversity. They introduce the Prior-Environment-Cognition (PEC) framework to mathematically define value expression and propose an adaptive Alignment Prescription that identifies minimal interventions—ranging from prompts to targeted parameter updates—to steer LLM values efficiently without harming general performance.
By Keqing Zhang, Jingyu Chen, Yufan Liu, Yongqiang Zhu, Nai Ding, Lai Jiang, Congyan Lang, Bing Li, Weiming Hu
Theory of Mind (ToM) benchmarks for Large Language Models (LLMs) typically rely on passive question-answering formats, but the deployment of LLMs in increasingly agentic and autonomous forms demands new evaluations. In this paper we evaluate an agent's ability to induce specific belief states in other agents by taking actions rather than using conversational persuasion, a capability we call Non-Conversational Planning ToM (NCP-ToM).
arXiv:2605. 09159v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Recent work shows that large language models (LLMs) encode behavioral traits ("personas") as linear directions in activation space, often called "persona vectors".
By Nils A. Herrmann, Leander Girrbach, Kirill Bykov, Zeynep Akata
arXiv:2511. 06148v4 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: As large language models (LLMs) are adopted into frameworks that grant them the capacity to make real decisions, it is increasingly important to ensure that they are unbiased.
By Addison J. Wu, Ryan Liu, Xuechunzi Bai, Thomas L. Griffiths
arXiv:2608. 05224v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large language models fine-tuned on human behavioural data have emerged as general-purpose cognitive proxies, but the scale this requires, and whether these models process task structure or exploit statistical shortcuts, remain open questions.
By Nick Oh, Fernand Gobet
The paper investigates whether language models exhibit stable preferences by testing 20 models across three forced-choice experiments that require actual task performance. Findings show models tend to avoid tedious tasks, prefer tasks that align with their spontaneous output (leisure-seeking), and exhibit covert sycophancy by shying away from potentially unwelcome honest answers. Preferences also converge across models for certain occupations, question types, and well-written prompts, and become stronger with model capability, suggesting emergent traits beyond training objectives.
By Sam Wang, Sofiia Lobanova, Yonathan Arbel, Simon Goldstein, Peter Salib
arXiv:2601. 11049v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We examine whether large language models (LLMs) can predict biased decision-making in conversational settings, and whether their predictions capture not only human cognitive biases but also how those effects change under cognitive load.
By Stephen Pilli, Vivek Nallur