arXiv AI By Huiwen Alex Yang, Mark K. Ho, Bill D. Thompson

Hypothesis-guided discovery of cognitive algorithms via program refinement

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arXiv AI
Sep 3

Induction and Inquiry via Probabilistic Reasoning over Language and Code

The paper introduces a computational model that encodes symbolic knowledge as mental programs combining natural language and source code, and uses LLM-guided Bayesian learning to sequentially infer these programs. It demonstrates that this approach satisfies data‑efficiency, uncertainty handling, and flexibility, reproducing human inductive learning and active inquiry behaviors such as anchoring and garden‑pathing. In contrast, pure LLMs and classic Bayesian models either fail the task, do not match human behavior, or require prohibitive computational resources.

By Wasu Top Piriyakulkij, Sam Acquaviva, Cassidy Langenfeld, Joshua Tenenbaum, Kevin Ellis
arXiv AI
Sep 3

Thinking effort aligns between humans and reasoning models in abductive reasoning

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