Cognitive Modeling

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Overview

The field builds formal accounts of mental processes, from Bayesian inference, reinforcement learning, and memory models to symbolic program induction and cognitive architectures. Researchers test these accounts against human behavior in tasks involving choice, language comprehension, causal learning, and theory of mind, as well as psychometric data and brain responses. Large language models are now studied both as candidate models of cognition and as tools for simulating learners, decision-makers, and social interactions. A central challenge is distinguishing a good behavioral fit from a faithful account of the underlying process, especially across tasks, individuals, and changing contexts.

Latest papers

CardsList

120 papers9 papers in the last four weeks, down 18% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. Multitask Interactions in Recurrent Dynamics across 100 Cognitive Tasks

    Oct 24, 2026Sílvia García-Hernández, Leema Hamid, Manuel BrennerMulti-Task LearningRecurrent Neural Networks

    Ernst Strüngmann Institute (ESI) of the Max Planck Society, Germany · Goethe University (GU) Frankfurt, University Hospital, Department for Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Germany · GU Frankfurt, Cooperative Brain Imaging Center, Germany

  2. Cognitive Maps in Large Language Models

    Oct 19, 2026Albert Qin, Jonathan Cohen, Gautam ReddyCognitive ModelingMechanistic Interpretability

    Department of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey · Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

  3. Event Memory and Narrative Dynamics: A Large Language Model Framework for Multidimensional State Spaces

    Oct 12, 2026Joshua SariñanaEpisodic MemoryCognitive Modeling

    Research Affiliate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  4. A small cognitive core explains human behavior at scale

    Oct 9, 2026Marcel Binz, Eric SchulzCognitive ModelingHuman Behavior Modeling

    Institute for Human-Centered AI, Helmholtz Munich, Neuherberg, Germany · Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany

  5. Neural Decoding as Cognitive Inference

    Oct 8, 2026Yi Guo, Changhong Jing, Yong Hu +4Neural DecodingCognitive Modeling

    Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, China. · University of Chinese Academy Sciences, Beijing, China. · Department of Computing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. +1

  6. Teaching a Minimalist Machine to Discover Recursive Programs for Arithmetic

    Oct 5, 2026Dominik Magiera, Christiane Wiebel-Herboth, Frank JäkelCognitive ModelingProgram Synthesis

    Centre for Cognitive Science & Institute of Psychology, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany · Honda Research Institute Europe GmbH, Offenbach am Main, Germany

  7. Response Variability and Stability in Human Reasoning

    Oct 2, 2026Clemens Bombach, Rajmadan Lakshmanan, Marco RagniCognitive ModelingComputational Cognitive Modeling

    Predictive Analytics, TU Chemnitz

  8. Cognitive Expert Language Models Better Align with the Corresponding Brain Systems

    Sep 28, 2026Zhivar Sourati, Mengxuan Helen Wu, Nona Ghazizadeh +3Cognitive Modeling

    Department of Computer Science, University of Southern California · Center for Computational Language Sciences, University of Southern California · Department of Psychology, University of Southern California

  9. Better Behavioral Prediction, More Faithful Model Ablations? Evidence from Sequential Choice

    Sep 28, 2026Hanbo XieCognitive Modeling

    School of Psychological and Brain Sciences Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, GA 30332, USA

  10. SMTB: Fast Structure-Mapping with Tight Bounds

    Sep 22, 2026Daniel Weitekamp, Christopher MacLellanCognitive ModelingAnalogical Reasoning

    School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332 USA

  11. Toward a Unified Mathematics of Concepts

    Sep 21, 2026Chen ShaniComputational Cognitive ModelingCognitive Modeling

    School of Industrial & Intelligent Systems Engineering Tel Aviv University Israel

  12. CogGym: Towards Large-Scale Comparative Evaluation of Human and Machine Cognition

    Sep 18, 2026Lance Ying, Jinzhou Wu, Yingshan Susan Wang +53LLM EvaluationCognitive Modeling

  13. Interpretable Memory Models for Spaced Repetition

    Sep 14, 2026Anders SchillCognitive ModelingInterpretable ML

    Stockholm, Sweden

  14. Map Users and Mapmakers: The Scope of Cognitive Attribution from Acquired Representations

    Sep 12, 2026Yiling WuConcept LearningKnowledge Representation

    BridgeM, Inc.

  15. Diffusion Models and Concept Formation

    Sep 11, 2026Zekun Wang, Karthik Singaravadivelan, Christopher J. MacLellanCognitive ModelingHierarchical Representation Learning

    College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332 USA

  16. Beyond ID Embeddings: Process-Grounded Language Modeling for Cognitive Diagnosis

    Sep 11, 2026Minghang Liu, Yuanzhuo Wang, Qiang Qiu +2LLM GroundingCognitive Modeling

    State Key Laboratory of AI Safety, Institute of Computing Technology, CAS · University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

  17. Do LLMs Choose Like Humans? Using Cognitive Theory to Evaluate LLM Decision-Making

    Sep 2, 2026Johnathan Sun, Andrei Shleifer, Yonatan BelinkovLLM Decision-MakingFraming Effects in Language Models

    Harvard University · Kempner Institute, Harvard University · Technion - Israel Institute of Technology

  18. Looped Transformers under the Jacobian Lens: Does the Global Workspace Survive Recurrence?

    Sep 1, 2026Wenlong Wang, Fergal ReidTransformer InterpretabilityCognitive Modeling

    Fin AI Research

  19. Thinking effort aligns between humans and reasoning models in abductive reasoning

    Sep 1, 2026Henry ArthurLLM AlignmentCognitive Modeling

    Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Italy

  20. Induction and Inquiry via Probabilistic Reasoning over Language and Code

    Sep 1, 2026Wasu Top Piriyakulkij, Sam Acquaviva, Cassidy Langenfeld +2Cognitive ModelingActive Learning

    1Cornell University · 2Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  21. ORDDAR: Observation-Driven Reasoning for Distortion-Resilient Decision, Action, and Cognitive Recovery

    Aug 27, 2026Deblina Kar, Anant Nawalgaria, Shyamal Kumar Das MandalAgentic ReasoningAI Agent Reliability

    Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India · Google Research, Germany

  22. Cognitive Profiling of LRMs' Reasoning Traces Using Bloom's Taxonomy

    Aug 24, 2026Maria-Eleni Zoumpoulidi, Georgios Paraskevopoulos, Alexandros PotamianosLarge Reasoning ModelsReasoning Trace Analysis

    Institute for Language and Speech Processing, Athena Research Center, Greece · Speech and Language Processing Group, National Technical University of Athens, Greece

  23. A Control-Theoretic Formulation of Global Workspace Theory

    Aug 16, 2026Ryota KanaiCognitive ModelingBrain Network Analysis

    Araya Inc., Tokyo, Japan

  24. A Hierarchical Energy-Based Model for Multimodal Cognition

    Aug 8, 2026Subir VarmaComputational Cognitive ModelingCognitive Modeling

    General Cognitics

  25. On the use of foundation models in cognitive science

    Aug 7, 2026Raj Sanjay Shah, Alex Warstadt, Michael Frank +1Computational Cognitive ModelingCognitive Modeling

    Interactive Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia, USA · Halcolu Data Science Institute and Dept. of Linguistics, University of California, San Diego, California, USA · Dept. of Psychology, Stanford University, California, USA

  26. Multi-Perspective Triad Interaction Graph Neural Network for Cognitive Distortion Detection

    Aug 7, 2026Jun Seo Kim, Hye Hyeon KimGraph Neural NetworksCognitive Modeling

    Department of Computer Engineering, Gachon University · Department of Biomedical Systems Informatics, Yonsei University

  27. An entropic explanation of insistence on sameness in autism

    Aug 5, 2026Przemysław ŚliwińskiComputational Cognitive ModelingCognitive Modeling

    Faculty of Information and Communication Technology, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Wrocław, Poland.

  28. Divide-and-Conquer: Towards Generalizable Amortized Bayesian Inference for the Drift Diffusion Model

    Aug 4, 2026Yufei Wu, Shanqing Gao, Andreas Voss +1Neural Posterior EstimationCognitive Modeling

    1KU Leuven, Belgium · 2Heidelberg University, Germany

  29. Predictive Set Theory: A Generative Framework for Cognitive Architecture with Operationalized Core Mechanisms

    Aug 3, 2026Yiyang YuCognitive Architectures for AI AgentsComputational Cognitive Modeling

  30. KC-Agent: A Dual-Process Cognitive Architecture for Efficient ML Model Improvement

    Aug 3, 2026Gusseppe Bravo-Rocca, Jordi Guitart, Ajay Dholakia +2Cognitive ModelingConcept Drift

    Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Barcelona, Spain · Cotiviti, South Jordan, UT, United States · Universitat Polit`ecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain +1