Related papers: LLMs and the ZPD
Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable proficiency in understanding text and generating high-quality responses. However, a critical distinction from human cognition is their typical lack of a distinct internal `reading'…
There is a vast supply of prior art that study models for mental processes. Some studies in psychology and philosophy approach it from an inner perspective in terms of experiences and percepts. Others such as neurobiology or…
Large language models (LLMs) are capable of producing high quality information at unprecedented rates. As these models continue to entrench themselves in society, the content they produce will become increasingly pervasive in databases that…
Theory of Mind (ToM) is the ability to understand and reflect on the mental states of others. Although this capability is crucial for human interaction, testing on Large Language Models (LLMs) reveals that they possess only a rudimentary…
Large language models (LLMs) are changing how we interact with computers. As they become capable of generating software dynamically, they invite a fundamental rethinking of the computer's role in human activity. In this conceptual paper, we…
We propose cognitive prompting as a novel approach to guide problem-solving in large language models (LLMs) through structured, human-like cognitive operations, such as goal clarification, decomposition, filtering, abstraction, and pattern…
Human interactions are deeply rooted in the interplay of thoughts, beliefs, and desires made possible by Theory of Mind (ToM): our cognitive ability to understand the mental states of ourselves and others. Although ToM may come naturally to…
The prevailing approach to distilling reasoning from Large Language Models (LLMs)-behavioral cloning from textual rationales-is fundamentally limited. It teaches Small Language Models (SLMs) to mimic surface-level patterns rather than the…
The development of large language models (LLMs) is limited by a lack of explainability, the absence of a unifying theory, and prohibitive operational costs. We propose a neuro-theoretical framework for the emergence of intelligence in…
Human languages are full of metaphorical expressions. Metaphors help people understand the world by connecting new concepts and domains to more familiar ones. Large pre-trained language models (PLMs) are therefore assumed to encode…
Metacognition--the capacity to monitor and evaluate one's own knowledge and performance--is foundational to human decision-making, learning, and communication. As large language models (LLMs) become increasingly embedded in both high-stakes…
Humans organize knowledge into compact conceptual categories that balance compression with semantic richness. Large Language Models (LLMs) exhibit impressive linguistic abilities, but whether they navigate this same compression-meaning…
To what extent can a neural network systematically reason over symbolic facts? Evidence suggests that large pre-trained language models (LMs) acquire some reasoning capacity, but this ability is difficult to control. Recently, it has been…
Psychological insights have long shaped pivotal NLP breakthroughs, from attention mechanisms to reinforcement learning and social modeling. As Large Language Models (LLMs) develop, there is a rising consensus that psychology is essential…
Large Language Models (LLMs) have reshaped our world with significant advancements in science, engineering, and society through applications ranging from scientific discoveries and medical diagnostics to Chatbots. Despite their ubiquity and…
We propose a novel framework for comprehending the reasoning capabilities of large language models (LLMs) through the perspective of meta-learning. By conceptualizing reasoning trajectories as pseudo-gradient descent updates to the LLM's…
The use of large language models either as decision support systems, or in agentic workflows, is rapidly transforming the digital ecosystem. However, the understanding of LLM decision-making under uncertainty remains limited. We study LLM…
Youth increasingly turn to large language models (LLMs) for mental well-being support, yet current personalization in LLMs can overlook the heterogeneous lived experiences shaping their needs. We conducted a participatory study with youth,…
Human languages have evolved to be structured through repeated language learning and use. These processes introduce biases that operate during language acquisition and shape linguistic systems toward communicative efficiency. In this paper,…
Large Language Models (LLMs) are often criticized for lacking true "understanding" and the ability to "reason" with their knowledge, being seen merely as autocomplete systems. We believe that this assessment might be missing a nuanced…