Landscape of Thoughts: Visualizing the Reasoning Process of Large Language Models

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Zhou, Zhanke, Zhu, Zhaocheng, Li, Xuan, Galkin, Mikhail, Feng, Xiao, Koyejo, Sanmi, Tang, Jian, Han, Bo
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Zhou, Zhanke
Zhu, Zhaocheng
Li, Xuan
Galkin, Mikhail
Feng, Xiao
Koyejo, Sanmi
Tang, Jian
Han, Bo
author_facet Zhou, Zhanke
Zhu, Zhaocheng
Li, Xuan
Galkin, Mikhail
Feng, Xiao
Koyejo, Sanmi
Tang, Jian
Han, Bo
contents Numerous applications of large language models (LLMs) rely on their ability to perform step-by-step reasoning. However, the reasoning behavior of LLMs remains poorly understood, posing challenges to research, development, and safety. To address this gap, we introduce landscape of thoughts (LoT), the first landscape visualization tool to inspect the reasoning trajectories with certain reasoning methods on any multi-choice dataset. We represent the textual states in a trajectory as numerical features that quantify the states' distances to the answer choices. These features are then visualized in two-dimensional plots using t-SNE. Qualitative and quantitative analysis with the landscape of thoughts effectively distinguishes between strong and weak models, correct and incorrect answers, as well as different reasoning tasks. It also uncovers undesirable reasoning patterns, such as low consistency and high uncertainty. Additionally, users can adapt LoT to a model that predicts the property they observe. We showcase this advantage by adapting LoT to a lightweight verifier that evaluates the correctness of trajectories. Empirically, this verifier boosts the reasoning accuracy and the test-time scaling effect. The code is publicly available at: https://github.com/tmlr-group/landscape-of-thoughts.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_22165
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Landscape of Thoughts: Visualizing the Reasoning Process of Large Language Models
Zhou, Zhanke
Zhu, Zhaocheng
Li, Xuan
Galkin, Mikhail
Feng, Xiao
Koyejo, Sanmi
Tang, Jian
Han, Bo
Machine Learning
Numerous applications of large language models (LLMs) rely on their ability to perform step-by-step reasoning. However, the reasoning behavior of LLMs remains poorly understood, posing challenges to research, development, and safety. To address this gap, we introduce landscape of thoughts (LoT), the first landscape visualization tool to inspect the reasoning trajectories with certain reasoning methods on any multi-choice dataset. We represent the textual states in a trajectory as numerical features that quantify the states' distances to the answer choices. These features are then visualized in two-dimensional plots using t-SNE. Qualitative and quantitative analysis with the landscape of thoughts effectively distinguishes between strong and weak models, correct and incorrect answers, as well as different reasoning tasks. It also uncovers undesirable reasoning patterns, such as low consistency and high uncertainty. Additionally, users can adapt LoT to a model that predicts the property they observe. We showcase this advantage by adapting LoT to a lightweight verifier that evaluates the correctness of trajectories. Empirically, this verifier boosts the reasoning accuracy and the test-time scaling effect. The code is publicly available at: https://github.com/tmlr-group/landscape-of-thoughts.
title Landscape of Thoughts: Visualizing the Reasoning Process of Large Language Models
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.22165