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Poster
in
Workshop: Statistical Frontiers in LLMs and Foundation Models

A Peek into Token Bias: Large Language Models Are Not Yet Genuine Reasoners

Bowen Jiang · Yangxinyu Xie · Zhuoqun Hao · Xiaomeng Wang · Tanwi Mallick · Weijie Su · Camillo Taylor · Dan Roth

Keywords: [ Hypothesis testing ] [ Large language models ]

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Sat 14 Dec 3:45 p.m. PST — 4:30 p.m. PST

Abstract:

This study introduces a hypothesis-testing framework to assess whether large language models (LLMs) possess genuine reasoning abilities or primarily depend on token bias. We go beyond evaluating LLMs on accuracy; rather, we aim to investigate their token bias in solving logical reasoning tasks. Specifically, we develop carefully controlled synthetic datasets featuring conjunction fallacy problems. Our framework outlines a list of hypotheses where token biases are readily identifiable, with all null hypotheses assuming genuine reasoning capabilities of LLMs. The findings in this study suggest, with statistical guarantee, that most LLMs still struggle with logical reasoning. While they may perform well on classic problems, their success largely depends on recognizing superficial patterns with strong token bias, thereby raising concerns about their actual reasoning and generalization abilities.

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