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Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated impressive performance on reasoning-intensive tasks, but enhancing their reasoning abilities typically relies on either reinforcement learning (RL) with verifiable signals or supervised…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-03-17 Yige Yuan , Teng Xiao , Shuchang Tao , Xue Wang , Jinyang Gao , Bolin Ding , Bingbing Xu

Chain-of-thought (CoT) via prompting is the de facto method for eliciting reasoning capabilities from large language models (LLMs). But for what kinds of tasks is this extra ``thinking'' really helpful? To analyze this, we conducted a…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-05-09 Zayne Sprague , Fangcong Yin , Juan Diego Rodriguez , Dongwei Jiang , Manya Wadhwa , Prasann Singhal , Xinyu Zhao , Xi Ye , Kyle Mahowald , Greg Durrett

Most efforts to improve the reasoning capabilities of large language models (LLMs) involve either scaling the number of parameters and the size of training data, or scaling inference computation by letting models generate complex chains of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-10 Yeskendir Koishekenov , Aldo Lipani , Nicola Cancedda

Test-time scaling (TTS) has been shown to improve the performance of large language models (LLMs) by sampling and aggregating diverse reasoning paths. However, existing research has overlooked a critical issue: selection bias of reasoning…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-09-24 Zongqian Wu , Baoduo Xu , Tianyu Li , Zhu Sun , Xiaofeng Zhu , Lei Feng

Large Language Models (LLMs) employ Chain-of-Thought (CoT) reasoning to deconstruct complex problems. While longer CoTs are often presumed superior, this paper challenges that notion, arguing that longer is not always better. Drawing on…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-05-28 Yuyang Wu , Yifei Wang , Ziyu Ye , Tianqi Du , Stefanie Jegelka , Yisen Wang

Recent advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) have leveraged increased test-time computation to enhance reasoning capabilities, a strategy that, while effective, incurs significant latency and resource costs, limiting their…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-01 Hao Wen , Xinrui Wu , Yi Sun , Feifei Zhang , Liye Chen , Jie Wang , Yunxin Liu , Yunhao Liu , Ya-Qin Zhang , Yuanchun Li

Chain-of-Thought (CoT) prompting has significantly advanced task-solving capabilities in natural language processing with large language models. Unlike standard prompting, CoT encourages the model to generate intermediate reasoning steps,…

Large Language Models (LLMs) can achieve strong performance on many tasks by producing step-by-step reasoning before giving a final output, often referred to as chain-of-thought reasoning (CoT). It is tempting to interpret these CoT…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2023-12-12 Miles Turpin , Julian Michael , Ethan Perez , Samuel R. Bowman

Chain-of-Thought (CoT) prompting improves reasoning but often produces long and redundant traces that substantially increase inference cost. We present SyncThink, a training-free and plug-and-play decoding method that reduces CoT overhead…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-01-08 Gengyang Li , Wang Cai , Yifeng Gao , Yunfang Wu

In this work, we propose Reinforced Functional Token Tuning (RFTT), a novel reinforced fine-tuning framework that empowers Large Language Models (LLMs) with self-play learn-to-reason capabilities. Unlike prior prompt-driven reasoning…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-02-20 Kongcheng Zhang , Qi Yao , Baisheng Lai , Jiaxing Huang , Wenkai Fang , Dacheng Tao , Mingli Song , Shunyu Liu

Training large language models (LLMs) with chain-of-thought (CoT) supervision has proven effective for enhancing their reasoning abilities. However, obtaining reliable and accurate reasoning supervision remains a significant challenge. We…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-10-21 Dongwon Jung , Wenxuan Zhou , Muhao Chen

Recently, techniques such as explicit structured reasoning have demonstrated strong test-time scaling behavior by enforcing a separation between the model's internal "thinking" process and the final response. A key factor influencing answer…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-06-10 Roy Eisenstadt , Itamar Zimerman , Lior Wolf

In enhancing the reasoning capabilities of large language models (LLMs), prior research primarily focuses on specific prompting techniques such as few-shot or zero-shot chain-of-thought (CoT) prompting. These methods, while effective, often…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-05-27 Xuezhi Wang , Denny Zhou

Reasoning Language Models, capable of extended chain-of-thought reasoning, have demonstrated remarkable performance on tasks requiring complex logical inference. However, applying elaborate reasoning for all queries often results in…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-06-27 Gongfan Fang , Xinyin Ma , Xinchao Wang

This work introduces Symbolic-Aided Chain-of-Thought (CoT), an improved approach to standard CoT, for logical reasoning in large language models (LLMs). The key idea is to integrate lightweight symbolic representations into few-shot…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-10-07 Phuong Minh Nguyen , Tien Huu Dang , Naoya Inoue

Large language models (LLMs) exhibit strong reasoning abilities, often attributed to few-shot or zero-shot chain-of-thought (CoT) prompting. While effective, these methods require labor-intensive prompt engineering, raising the question of…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-03-19 Hyunbin Jin , Je Won Yeom , Seunghyun Bae , Taesup Kim

Scaling large language models by increasing parameters and training data is increasingly constrained by limited high-quality corpora and rising communication costs. This work explores an alternative axis: increasing per-token computation…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-03-11 Boyi Zeng , Yiqin Hao , He Li , Shixiang Song , Feichen Song , Zitong Wang , Siyuan Huang , Yi Xu , ZiWei He , Xinbing Wang , Zhouhan Lin

This study investigates the in-context learning capabilities of various decoder-only transformer-based language models with different model sizes and training data, including GPT2, SmolLM2, OpenELM, TinyLlama, Stable LM, and Gemma 2. We…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-02-24 Yen-Che Hsiao , Abhishek Dutta

Large language models can generate long chain-of-thought (CoT) reasoning, yet prior work suggests that CoT can be post-hoc rationalization rather than a faithful reflection of the computation through explicitly designed settings. In this…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-05-28 Jiachen Zhao , Yiyou Sun , Weiyan Shi , Dawn Song

Recent advances in large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated the power of reasoning through self-generated chains of thought. Multiple reasoning agents can collaborate to raise joint reasoning quality above individual outcomes.…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-05-19 Chan-Jan Hsu , Davide Buffelli , Jamie McGowan , Feng-Ting Liao , Yi-Chang Chen , Sattar Vakili , Da-shan Shiu