The paper investigates why large language models (LLMs) struggle in strategic decision-making under incomplete information. It identifies two key gaps: an observation‑belief gap where LLMs’ internal representations of game states are accurate but brittle, and a belief‑action gap where converting these internal beliefs into actions is weak, leading to suboptimal payoffs. Experiments with Llama 3.1, Qwen3, and gpt‑oss confirm that acting optimally on decoded beliefs would improve outcomes in most games, highlighting a bottleneck in belief‑to‑action conversion.
By Jan Sobotka, Mustafa O. Karabag, Ufuk Topcu
arXiv:2511. 04500v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed as decision-making agents in high-stakes domains and as imitators of human behavior in the social and behavioral sciences.
By Andrea Cera Palatsi, Samuel Martin-Gutierrez, Ana S. Cardenal, Max Pellert
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:2510. 10813v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly applied to domains that require reasoning about other agents' behavior, such as negotiation, policy design, and market simulation.
By Enric Junque de Fortuny, Veronica Roberta Cappelli
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.
By Yen-Shan Chen, Yu Chian Duan, Chih-En Kuo, Jian-Bin Wu, Yun-Nung Chen
The study investigates how reputation, strategy, and emotional signals influence cooperation in generative AI models using the iterated prisoner's dilemma. Non‑reasoning models (Claude 3.5, Gemini 2.0 Flash, GPT‑4o) showed cooperation shaped by all three factors, while reasoning models (Claude 4.6, Gemini 3, GPT‑5.2) relied more on strategy and reputation, displayed reduced emotional influence, and exhibited varied end‑game behaviors. These results highlight the growing sophistication and heterogeneity of AI social behavior, suggesting the need for standardized cooperation benchmarks.
By Celso de Melo, Zishan Feng, James Hale, Kazunori Terada, Giorgio Coricelli, Jonathan Gratch