Theory of Mind in Large Language Models: Assessment and Enhancement

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Chen, Ruirui, Jiang, Weifeng, Qin, Chengwei, Tan, Cheston
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Chen, Ruirui
Jiang, Weifeng
Qin, Chengwei
Tan, Cheston
author_facet Chen, Ruirui
Jiang, Weifeng
Qin, Chengwei
Tan, Cheston
contents Theory of Mind (ToM)-the ability to reason about the mental states of oneself and others-is a cornerstone of human social intelligence. As Large Language Models (LLMs) become increasingly integrated into daily life, understanding their ability to interpret and respond to human mental states is crucial for enabling effective interactions. In this paper, we review LLMs' ToM capabilities by analyzing both evaluation benchmarks and enhancement strategies. For evaluation, we focus on recently proposed and widely used story-based benchmarks. For enhancement, we provide an in-depth analysis of recent methods aimed at improving LLMs' ToM abilities. Furthermore, we outline promising directions for future research to further advance these capabilities and better adapt LLMs to more realistic and diverse scenarios. Our survey serves as a valuable resource for researchers interested in evaluating and advancing LLMs' ToM capabilities.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_00026
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Theory of Mind in Large Language Models: Assessment and Enhancement
Chen, Ruirui
Jiang, Weifeng
Qin, Chengwei
Tan, Cheston
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Theory of Mind (ToM)-the ability to reason about the mental states of oneself and others-is a cornerstone of human social intelligence. As Large Language Models (LLMs) become increasingly integrated into daily life, understanding their ability to interpret and respond to human mental states is crucial for enabling effective interactions. In this paper, we review LLMs' ToM capabilities by analyzing both evaluation benchmarks and enhancement strategies. For evaluation, we focus on recently proposed and widely used story-based benchmarks. For enhancement, we provide an in-depth analysis of recent methods aimed at improving LLMs' ToM abilities. Furthermore, we outline promising directions for future research to further advance these capabilities and better adapt LLMs to more realistic and diverse scenarios. Our survey serves as a valuable resource for researchers interested in evaluating and advancing LLMs' ToM capabilities.
title Theory of Mind in Large Language Models: Assessment and Enhancement
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.00026