arXiv:2610.02523v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Developing cognitive models of algorithmic reasoning from behavioral data is a central problem in cognitive science that challenges current methods. Tr...
By Huiwen Alex Yang, Mark K. Ho, Bill D. Thompson
arXiv:2607. 12733v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) excel at pattern recognition and text generation, but their capacity for abductive inference - inferring latent hypotheses that explain observed behavior - remains poorly understood.
By Julius Steiglechner, Lucas Mahler, Gabriele Lohmann
The paper presents a taxonomy of 28 cognitive elements derived from cognitive science to analyze reasoning in large language models (LLMs). Using a fine‑grained evaluation framework, the authors compare 192,000 model traces with 1,346 human think‑aloud traces, finding that while models deploy similar cognitive elements, they differ in usage patterns. The study introduces test‑time reasoning guidance that improves model accuracy on ill‑structured problems by 9.7 percentage points and highlights a research gap in self‑awareness, advocating for a shared vocabulary to diagnose failures and guide robust model development.
By Shuyue Stella Li, Priyanka Kargupta, Haocheng Wang, Jinu Lee, Dean Light, Shan Chen, Orevaoghene Ahia, Thomas L. Griffiths, Max Kleiman-Weiner, Jiawei Han, Asli Celikyilmaz, Yulia Tsvetkov
arXiv:2510.01030v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: The human ability to translate diverse perceptual and linguistic inputs into structured behavior has been thought to rest on learning robust repres...
By Zach Studdiford, Timothy T. Rogers, Kushin Mukherjee, Siddharth Suresh
Emergent Abilities in Large Language Models: A Survey reviews how scaling LLMs leads to previously unseen capabilities such as advanced reasoning, in-context learning, coding, and problem-solving. The paper critically examines definitions, inconsistencies, and the conditions that foster these abilities, including scaling laws, task complexity, pre‑training loss, quantization, and prompting strategies. It also discusses the extension to Large Reasoning Models and highlights safety concerns like deception, manipulation, and reward hacking, calling for improved evaluation and governance.
By Leonardo Berti, Flavio Giorgi, Gjergji Kasneci
The paper investigates whether current reasoning models exhibit systematicity—the idea that understanding one concept should extend to closely related variations—by extending rule induction tasks from cognitive science. Using task isomorphisms like recombination and substitution, the authors generate structurally equivalent task variants and test models on them. Results show that while models can solve the original tasks, they frequently fail on these equivalent variants, indicating a lack of systematicity in their reasoning abilities.
By Simon Schug, Brenden M. Lake