arXiv AI
6d ago

Reasoning over Non-Parametric Memory in Multilingual LLMs: A Cognitive-Based Analysis of Relational Knowledge

The paper introduces “Rel-Bloom,” a multilingual diagnostic benchmark of 450 multiple-choice questions that tests language models’ ability to reason over relational facts supplied directly in prompts. It evaluates 43 models across six languages and two multilingual settings, revealing that accuracy drops sharply from Apply to Analyze levels, that Evaluate items remain a bottleneck even for high-performing models, and that difficulty rankings are consistent across languages. The study also finds that counterfactual contexts are generally harder than factual ones, and that removing entity identities can sometimes improve higher-level performance.

By Zohreh Abbasi Liasi, Batoul Hammoud, Anas Madkoor, Ehsaneddin Asgari
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 10

Do LLMs Make More Mistakes If They Do Not Believe the Input Data?

The study investigates whether large language models (LLMs) are more prone to errors when they doubt the plausibility of input data, a phenomenon termed context‑memory conflict. Using non‑English and low‑resource language datasets, the authors generate text from factual, counterfactual, and fictional RDF triples in English, Czech, Slovak, and Upper Sorbian, and evaluate faithfulness with both human annotations and an LLM judge (Kimi K3). Contrary to expectations, the results show only a weak context‑memory conflict: counterfactual inputs receive slightly lower faithfulness scores than factual ones, and the choice of LLM judge can significantly affect perceived conflict strength.

By Peter Kochelka, Ale\v{s} Manuel Pap\'a\v{c}ek, Vojt\v{e}ch Dvo\v{r}\'ak, Ond\v{r}ej Du\v{s}ek
arXiv Computation and Language
Nov 4

Tracing How Language Models Integrate Temporal Anchors into Factual Recall

The paper introduces anchored factual recall, where language models must choose an object for a subject–relation pair conditioned on an explicit anchor such as a time. Using causal interventions on four open‑weight models, the authors identify two parallel computational routes: a subject‑mediated route that aligns the subject representation with the queried year, and a direct route that lets the final position attend to the anchor and uses upper‑layer MLPs to bias the answer. These routes combine to determine the model’s answer, showing that factual recall involves selecting among context‑dependent alternatives rather than retrieving a single stored object.

By Ayana Niwa, Masahiro Kaneko, Kentaro Inui
arXiv Computation and Language
Oct 9

Using LMs to Model the Effects of Context and Coreference during Sentence Comprehension

The study examines how varying the context window size of GPT‑2 affects its alignment with human reading-time data. A U‑shaped relationship is found: very short windows (<20 tokens) capture local memory limits, while larger windows (500–1,000 tokens) provide the best overall fit. Counterfactual experiments that disrupt cross‑sentential coreference chains show that these long‑range coreference relations are crucial for the improved fit of larger context windows.

By Kohei Kajikawa, Lin Ai, Tatsuki Kuribayashi, Ethan Gotlieb Wilcox