Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models

Latest papers

49 papers22 papers in the last four weeks, against 2 the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

StepBack: Step-Level Error-Localized Resampling for Efficient Test-Time Reasoning
Nov 5, 2026Yang Ouyang, Jung-Eun KimEfficient Language Model Reasoning LLM Reasoning
Department of Computer Science, North Carolina State University
Adaptive Semantic Branching: Disagreement-Localized Cross-Trajectory Regeneration for Reasoning Candidate Expansion
Nov 5, 2026Jeong-Yoon Kim, Tae-Yoon LeeLLM Reasoning Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models
Department of Electronic Engineering, Hanbat National University
Extending Reasoning in Typed Decision Models via Looping
Nov 5, 2026David Berghaus, Arber Zela, Behzad Shomali +4Efficient Language Model Reasoning Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models
Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, Bonn, Germany · Fraunhofer IAIS, Sankt Augustin, Germany · EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland +1
Verifier-Guided Self-Consistency: Test-Time Reasoning with Imperfect Generators and Verifiers
Nov 4, 2026Ekaterina Fadeeva, Xueyan Li, Mrinmaya Sachan +1Language Model Decoding Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models
ETH Zürich · Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems · MBZUAI
Entropogram-guided Visual Realignment Decoding: Capturing the Rhythm of Multimodal Reasoning
Nov 4, 2026Jiaqi Deng, Zhe Fu, Yakun Chen +5Multimodal Hallucination MLLM Reasoning
University of Technology Sydney · Alibaba Cloud Computing · Stony Brook University +3
Learning When to Think Aloud in Latent Reasoning
Nov 4, 2026Zhehao Zhou, Tongrui Su, Shengyu Zhu +4Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models Latent CoT Reasoning
Beijing Institute of Technology · Key Laboratory of AI Safety, Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences · Kuaishou Technology
Routes of Reasoning: Reading and Reshaping Test-Time Compute in MoE Models
Nov 4, 2026Shengjie Wang, Mohsen Fayyaz, Nanyun PengEfficient Language Model Reasoning Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models
University of California, Los Angeles
When to Ask, When to Answer: Strategic Clarification for Ambiguous Reference Resolution in Dialogue
Nov 3, 2026Ibrahim Khebour, Nikhil KrishnaswamyClarification Question Generation Pragmatic Reasoning in Language Models
Colorado State University
Think Less, Locally: Local Preference Learning for Reasoning Compression
Nov 3, 2026Muyao Yuan, Liyan Xu, Weizhan Zhang +4Efficient Language Model Reasoning LLM Reasoning
MOEKLINNS, School of Computer Science and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University · WeChat AI, Tencent Inc.
AlgoPilot: Cross-Paradigm Reasoning in Language Models via Strategy Selection and Guidance
Nov 2, 2026Yilun Hao, Ruixiao Yang, Hudson Hilal +5Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models Structured Reasoning in Language Models
Massachusetts Institute of Technology · Harvard University · MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab
Library of Layers (LoL): Adaptively Ordering Transformer Layers at Runtime
Nov 2, 2026Abdellah Rahmani, Sean McLeish, Ang Li +3Transformer Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models
EPFL · University of Maryland · New York University +1
Beyond Answers, Traces, and Efficiency: Evidence for Adaptive Reasoning
Nov 2, 2026Sejin Kim, Sundong KimLanguage Model Reasoning Evaluation Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models
Chungnam National University · Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology
Concise-9B: Removing the Slack from a Reasoning Model's Thinking
Nov 1, 2026Alexander Boesgaard LorupEfficient Language Model Reasoning LLM Reasoning
An Openhagen technical report
TAC-CoT: Tool-Empowered Implicit Chain-of-Thought via Interleaving Explicit Tokens
Nov 1, 2026Juseon Do, Sangmin Bae, Jeesu Jung +1Implicit Reasoning in Language Models Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models
Data Intelligence System Lab, KAIST · Optimization and Statistical Inference Lab, KAIST AI · Cluvion
CogRSI: Evolving and Auditing Cognitive Reasoning Strategies
Oct 31, 2026Yandan zheng, Haoran Luo, Xinliang Zhou +1Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models Theory of Mind
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore · Stanford University · VinUniversity, Vietnam
Attention Maps Know When to Think: Training-Free Difficulty-Aware Chain-of-Thought for Reasoning Segmentation
Oct 30, 2026Chanseul Cho, Jaesung Jun, Dongheon Lee +1Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models MLLM Reasoning
Machine Intelligence Laboratory, University of Seoul Data Science Interdisciplinary Major
Aligning Medical Vision Language Models at the Capability Boundary with Entropy Adaptive Rubric Grounding
Oct 29, 2026Hongyu Bai, Jiaqi Zeng, Chunzheng ZhuMedical VLMs Reasoning for VLMs
Shanghai Jiao Tong University Shanghai, China · Hunan University Changsha, China
What Effort Level Should I Choose? On the Economics of Reasoning Effort in LLM Agents
Oct 25, 2026Kaiser Sun, Yongchan Kwon, Zain Hasan +3Inference-Time Compute Allocation LLM Agent Efficiency
Johns Hopkins University · Together AI · Cornell University
More: Mode-Optimized Reasoning with Self-Adaptive Effort for Self-Evolving Agents
Oct 24, 2026Dianxing Shi, Dingjie Fu, Tianyu Lei +1Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models Efficient Language Model Reasoning
Beihang University · Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Same Beliefs, Different Policies: Learning Reusable Representations for Early Stopping in LLM Reasoning
Oct 21, 2026Jingwei Ni, Dmitry Abulkhanov, Vladislav Smirnov +5Early Stopping for Language Model Reasoning Early Stopping
ETH Zürich · MBZUAI · University of Zürich +1
Route-and-Generate: KL-Regularized Router Improvement for Reasoning Routing in LLMs
Oct 21, 2026Tien-Phat Nguyen, Truong Nguyen, Thanh-Thien Le +4Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models Efficient Language Model Reasoning
Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Vietnam · Monash University, Australia · New York University, USA +1
A Large-Scale Evaluation of Role-Enhanced Zero-Shot Chain-of-Thought Prompting
Oct 21, 2026Ibrahim Khan, Thai Van Nguyen, Yi Xia +5LLM Prompting Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models
College of Information Science and Technology, Ritsumeikan University, Japan · Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Ritsumeikan University, Japan · Independent Researcher, and an alumnus of the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Ritsumeikan University, Japan +1
Adaptive Stopping of Streamed Reasoning for Language Model Agents
Oct 20, 2026JunHyeok Oh, Byung-Jun LeeEarly Stopping for Language Model Reasoning Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models
Korea University
CovNav: Conformal Prediction-Guided Adaptive Inference for Object Goal Navigation
Oct 20, 2026Pengying Wu, Zhejia Wen, Kang Ding +5Object-Goal Navigation Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models
School of Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China · School of Engineering, Newcastle University, UK · State Key Laboratory of Multimodal Artificial Intelligence Systems, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
On the Fragility of Tasks under Composition: Implicit Budgeting in Language Models
Oct 19, 2026Chenpan Li, Thies Brockmoeller, Stefanie Jegelka +2Compositional Reasoning Efficient Language Model Reasoning
TU Munich · MIT CSAIL
PORA: Learning When More Reasoning Pays Off for LLM Agents
Oct 19, 2026Bo Yan, Qi Zhang, Zhen Tan +2Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models Efficient Language Model Reasoning
University of Central Florida · Independent Researcher · Stevens Institute of Technology +1
SOMA: Continuous Monitoring and Intervention for System Two Reasoning with System One Models
Oct 19, 2026Ruizhi Qian, Lei Shi, Tianyu Hu +3Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models Metacognition in Language Models
University of Central Florida
BOSS: Token-Budgeted Online Sampling and Selection for LLM Reasoning
Oct 19, 2026Yupeng Chang, Yahan Li, Chenlu Guo +3Efficient Language Model Reasoning Inference-Time Compute Allocation
School of Artificial Intelligence, Jilin University · Xingchen AGI Lab, China Telecom Artificial Intelligence (Beijing) Co., Ltd., China · Bilibili Inc., China +3
GraphEvoResearcher: A Cost-Matched Mechanism Analysis of Explicit Reasoning Graphs in Training-Free Self-Reflection
Oct 19, 2026Suxing Liu, Byungwon Min, Zhijian Zheng +1Multi-Hop QA LLM Self-Refinement
Department of Computing, Universiti Sains Malaysia
Spherical Fixed-Point Reasoners: Adaptive Loop Halting on the Hypersphere
Oct 19, 2026Arber Zela, Artavazd Maranjyan, Pol Puigdemont +3Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models Structured Reasoning in Language Models
EPFL · Lamarr Institute · Fraunhofer IAIS +1

Nov 5, 2026J/K move · Enter open · S save

StepBack: Step-Level Error-Localized Resampling for Efficient Test-Time Reasoning

Yang Ouyang, Jung-Eun Kim

Department of Computer Science, North Carolina State University

Efficient Language Model Reasoning LLM Reasoning Self-Consistency in Language Models Adaptive Reasoning in Language Models

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Self-consistency (SC) is a widely used decoding strategy for improving chain-of-thought reasoning, but it requires sampling many complete reasoning trajectories with a preset budget. Its efficient variants reduce the cost mainly by stopping full-trajectory sampling early or distributing the number of samples across questions. In this paper, we propose StepBack, a step-level error-localized resampling method for efficient test-time reasoning. Given a small set of draft trajectories, StepBack localizes likely first error positions using lightweight signals and then resamples the detected error step and its suffix, followed by majority answer voting. Empirically, StepBack matches the accuracy of SC on average across seven mathematical reasoning and multi-hop QA benchmarks, while reducing token usage by up to 41.26%. In addition, by nature, StepBack can be combined with adaptive inference methods such as Adaptive Consistency, further improving their inference-time efficiency.