The Geometry of Simulated Perspectives: Dissociating Representation and Behaviour in a Multimodal Language Model

The paper examines how multimodal language models, specifically Qwen3‑VL‑8B‑Instruct, encode different observer perspectives in their internal representations. By varying persona content and prompt framing across 100 images and 53 conditions, the study finds that early layers encode image identity while later layers develop persona‑specific structures. Prompt framing more strongly alters internal representations than persona identity, yet persona content has a larger effect on behavioural judgments, revealing a dissociation between representational geometry and functional outcomes.

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