Language Model Probing

Follow this topic Ask about this topic

Momentum

19 papers in the last four weeks, up 12% on the four weeks before. 0.2% of all new papers.

Jul 13Week of Sep 28

Latest papers 192

All topics

TIPS: Topological Ill-Posedness Probing and Steering in Large Language Models
Jun 22, 2026Guangyu Jiang, Sizhe Tang, Mahdi Imani +2Language Model Steering Question Answering
The George Washington University · Northeastern University
TriggerBench: Investigating Prospective Memory for Large Language Models
Jun 22, 2026Tianhua Zhang, Xinjiang Wang, Qianxi Zhang +6LLM Evaluation Long-Context Language Model Evaluation
The Chinese University of Hong Kong · Microsoft Research Asia
Pre-Generation Hallucination Detection in Large Language Models via Soft-Target Attention Probing
Jun 20, 2026Amina Miftakhova, Alexey ZaytsevLanguage Model Error Detection LLM Hallucination Detection
Applied AI Institute
SCOPE: Sequential Conformal Probing for Reliable OOD Rejection in LLM Services
Jun 19, 2026Zhuoyun Li, Boxuan Wang, Changshun Wu +2Conformal Prediction OOD Detection
School of Computer Science and Informatics, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
From Texts to Scores: Tracing the Emergence of Essay Quality Representations in Large Language Models
Jun 18, 2026Jiaxu Zuo, Mu You, Kaixin Lan +5LLM Interpretability Automated Essay Scoring
NLP2CT Lab, Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Macau · Institute of International Language Services Studies, Macau Millennium College · School of Data Science and Information Engineering, Guizhou Minzu University
Comparing Linear Probes with Mahalanobis Cosine Similarity
Jun 17, 2026Zhuofan Josh Ying, Peter Hase, Nikolaus KriegeskorteLinear Probing Mahalanobis Distance
Departments of 1Psychology, 2Neuroscience, 3Electrical Engineering · 4Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute; Columbia University, New York, NY · 5Stanford University, Stanford, CA +1
Rift: A Conflict Signature for Deception in Language Models
Jun 15, 2026Petr NyomaKnowledge Conflicts in Language Models LLM Interpretability
Harmonic Labs
Zero-source LLM Hallucination Detection with Human-like Criteria Probing
Jun 11, 2026Jiahao Yang, Shuhai Zhang, Hailong Kang +3Hallucination Detection LLM Hallucination Detection
South China University of Technology · The University of Melbourne · Pazhou Laboratory +1
"Did you lie?" Evaluating Lie Detectors across Model Scale and Belief-Verified Model Organisms
Jun 10, 2026Alan Cooney, David Africa, Geoffrey IrvingLLM Evaluation Deception in Language Models
AI Security Institute
Scenario-based Probing and Steering Cultural Values in Large Language Models--Extended Version
Jun 9, 2026Trung Duc Anh Dang, Tung Kieu, Sarah MasudLanguage Model Steering Cultural Alignment
University of Copenhagen · Aalborg University
When Probing Accuracy Saturates, Fragility Resolves: A Complementary Metric for LLM Pre-Training Analysis
Jun 9, 2026Orion Reblitz-RichardsonLanguage Model Pretraining Noise Robustness
Distiller Labs.
Predicting Future Behaviors in Reasoning Models Enables Better Steering
Jun 9, 2026Evgenii Kortukov, Piotr Komorowski, Florian Klein +5Language Model Steering Representation Steering
1Fraunhofer HHI · 2Northeastern University · 3KAIST
Stop Early, Spend Less: Hidden-State Probes as a Practical Recipe for Streaming Moderation of LLM Outputs
Jun 9, 2026Huizhen Shu, Xuying Li, Piao XueLLM Guardrails Safety Filtering
ModelOneAI · yunshanai
MIRAGE: A Polarity-Flipping Encoding Subspace in LLM Agents
Jun 9, 2026Pratibha Revankar, Kargi Chauhan, Jihye Kim +3LLM Interpretability AI Agent Security
University of California, Santa Cruz.
PRISM: Recovering Instruction Sets from Language Model Activations
Jun 8, 2026Gilad Gressel, Rahul Pankajakshan, Julia Diament +3Neural Decoding LLM Interpretability
Center for Cybersecurity Systems & Networks, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham · Ben-Gurion University of the Negev · Microsoft
ToolSense: A Diagnostic Framework for Auditing Parametric Tool Knowledge in LLMs
Jun 4, 2026Ashutosh Hathidara, Sai Shruthi Sistla, Sebastian Schreiber +1Tool-Augmented Language Model Agents LLM Auditing
SAP Labs
Self-Commitment Latency: A Reward-Free Probe for Prompted Implicit Hacking
Jun 4, 2026Bonan Shen, Youting Wang, Dingyan Shang +1Reward Hacking Language Model Probing
Independent Researcher · Northeastern University · Syracuse University
Pattern Selectivity is Not Task-Causal Structure: A Cross-Architecture Mechanistic Study of Composed-Task Circuits in 1B-Class Language Models
Jun 3, 2026Yongzhong XuAttention Head Analysis Decoder-Only Language Models
Light or Full Verb? A Minimal-Pair Dataset for Probing Phraseological Competence in Language Models
Jun 3, 2026Francesca Franzon, Nicolas Rosàs Gómez, Leo WannerLanguage Model Probing
Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) · Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA)
FailureScope: Cross-Regime Behavioral Diagnosis of Language Model Weaknesses
Jun 3, 2026Nicholas SabanLLM Evaluation Agent Evaluation
Patronus AI · University of California, Berkeley
Linear Probes Detect Task Format, Not Reasoning Mode in Language Model Hidden States
Jun 1, 2026Subramanyam Sahoo, Vinija Jain, Aman Chadha +1LLM Interpretability Representation Geometry in Language Models
Horizon Research · Meta · Apple +1
Detection vs. Execution: Single-Bucket Probes Miss Half the Mamba-2 State Sink
May 30, 2026Yuhang JiangMamba Attention Head Analysis
Independent Researcher
The Assistant as a Privileged Persona: A canonical reference in cross-persona self-recognition
May 30, 2026Asvin GPersonality Modeling in Language Models Authorship Attribution
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
Hallucination Is Linearly Decodable from Mid-Layer Hidden States in Quantized LLMs
May 30, 2026Aizierjiang AiersilanHallucination in Language Models LLM Hallucination Detection
University of Macau
What Am I Missing? Question-Answering as Hidden State Probing
May 29, 2026Chu Fei Luo, Samuel Dahan, Xiaodan ZhuLLM Self-Refinement Language Model Self-Assessment
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering & Ingenuity Labs, Queen’s University · Conflict Analytics Lab, Queen’s University · Cornell Law School +1
Knowledge boundary probing and demand-guided intervention for LLM-based power system code generation
May 29, 2026Hui Wu, Xiaoyang Wang, Zhong FanAutomated Program Repair Code Generation
Department of Engineering, University of Exeter · Department of Computer Science, University of Exeter
Probing the Prompt KV Cache: Where It Becomes Dispensable
May 28, 2026Vinayshekhar Bannihatti Kumar, Manoj Ghuhan Arivazhagan, Disha Makhija +1KV Caching KV-Cache Management
AWS AI Labs
Latent Performance Profiling of Large Language Models
May 28, 2026Tanmoy Chakraborty, Ayan Sengupta, Suparna Bhattacharya +7LLM Evaluation LLM Interpretability
Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi India · Yardi School of Artiﬁcial Intelligence, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi India · Hewlett Packard Enterprise, India +5
Error as a Lens: Probing LLM Reasoning through Synthetic Misconception Generation
May 27, 2026Xinming Yang, Jun LiSynthetic Data Generation Generative AI in Education
CUNY Graduate Center · CUNY Queens College
Reverse Probing: Supervised Token-level Uncertainty Quantification for Large Language Models in Clinical Text
May 27, 2026Bushi Xiao, Sarvesh Soni, Daisy Zhe WangText Summarization LLM Uncertainty Estimation
University of Florida Gainesville, FL · U.S. National Library of Medicine Bethesda, MD

Jun 22, 2026, cs.AIJ/K move · Enter open · S save

TIPS: Topological Ill-Posedness Probing and Steering in Large Language Models

Guangyu Jiang, Sizhe Tang, Mahdi Imani, Nathaniel D. Bastian+1

The George Washington University · Northeastern University

Language Model Steering Question Answering Language Model Probing LLM Abstention

Open paper AskPDF arXiv

Ill-posed questions, including those involving ambiguity, under-specification, or conflicting statements, may admit no valid answer or multiple plausible answers, posing a significant challenge for large language models (LLMs) despite their otherwise strong performance. Existing work often treats LLM reasoning as a black box and focuses on input-output analysis. Can a compact, unified topological representation of internal model states capture diverse sources of ill-posedness and steer reasoning toward responses appropriate to each source? To this end, we study the internal state from a topological perspective by treating the contextual hidden states of its prompt tokens at a single transformer layer as a point cloud, capturing the input problem's relational structure as encoded by the model. Our analysis shows that zero- and one-dimensional persistent homology---tracking how connected components merge as the distance threshold increases (

H_0

) and the emergence and filling of one-dimensional loops in the filtration (

H_1

), respectively---yield seven compact descriptors of ill-posedness that also serve as control signals for steering model reasoning. Thus, we develop a topology-conditioned steering mechanism. It retrieves topologically similar positive and negative examples for each query to form a local activation-space contrast. The resulting query-specific direction modifies internal states during prefill and decoding, guiding the model's responses toward suitable abstention or clarification tailored to the underlying source of ill-posedness. Empirical evaluations on two datasets and open-weight models spanning four families demonstrate the effectiveness of this compact representation for ill-posedness classification, while topology-conditioning significantly improved steering performance.

Momentum

Related topics

Latest papers 192