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:2609.17496v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: LLM assistants are widely used for daily social advice, yet evaluating their social reasoning in such consultation settings remains challenging since (...
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.
The paper investigates how explicit reasoning in Large Reasoning Models (LRMs) affects their ability to persuade and be persuaded. Experiments on objective and subjective tasks reveal a Persuasion Duality: reasoning boosts an agent’s persuasive power by about 21 percentage points while also making it less susceptible to incorrect persuasion by up to 10 percentage points. However, the study finds that persuasiveness often relies on superficial cues like response length and repetition rather than logical validity, and that persuasion can amplify or attenuate non‑linearly across multi‑hop agent chains. The authors also propose an attention‑guided prompt‑level adversarial argument detection method that improves agent robustness.
arXiv:2608. 09638v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Theory of Mind (ToM) is essential for agent interactions, yet existing evaluations either rely on static scenarios that oversimplify mental-state reasoning or interactive settings that provide limited diagnostic insight.
arXiv:2606. 05330v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language models can shift human beliefs across high-stakes domains, but most persuasion studies rely on pre/post belief change.
arXiv:2608. 11624v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Persuasion is a core dynamic of natural language communication, shaping how large language models (LLMs) update beliefs, resolve disagreements, and reach decisions.
Persuasion is a core dynamic of natural language communication, shaping how large language models (LLMs) update beliefs, resolve disagreements, and reach decisions. As LLMs increasingly debate, advise, and think collaboratively with humans and each other, resistance to harmful persuasion becomes a core requirement for reliable behavior.
arXiv:2609.35804v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) have shown remarkable capabilities in various natural language processing tasks, leading to their widespread deployment...
arXiv:2505. 22961v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) have shown promising potential in persuasion, but existing works on training LLM persuaders are still preliminary.
arXiv:2510.15144v4 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Simulating human reasoning in open-ended tasks has long been a central aspiration in AI and cognitive science. While large language models now appr...
arXiv:2607. 11363v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Text-based evaluations of Theory of Mind (ToM) in Large Language Models (LLMs) often involve cognitive tests akin to the Sally-Anne task that can be gamed due to exposure to relevantly similar tasks in pre-training and do not obviously test models' functional ToM abilities in ways that generalize to naturalistic settings.
The paper defends the 'Whole Hog Thesis', arguing that sophisticated large language models such as ChatGPT are full linguistic and cognitive agents, possessing understanding, beliefs, desires, knowledge, and intentions. It rejects low‑level computational starting points and instead builds its case from high‑level behavioral observations, using Holistic Network Assumptions to link actions to mental states. The authors systematically rebut common objections—such as hallucinations and planning errors—by showing these resemble human fallibility and by challenging the necessity of traditional conditions like embodiment or semantic grounding.