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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.15392 |
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| _version_ | 1866915895784243200 |
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| author | Huang, Yiming Bie, Biquan Na, Zuqiu Ruan, Weilin Lei, Songxin Yue, Yutao He, Xinlei |
| author_facet | Huang, Yiming Bie, Biquan Na, Zuqiu Ruan, Weilin Lei, Songxin Yue, Yutao He, Xinlei |
| contents | The rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT has advanced natural language processing, yet concerns about cognitive biases are growing. In this paper, we investigate the anchoring effect, a cognitive bias where the mind relies heavily on the first information as anchors to make affected judgments. We explore whether LLMs are affected by anchoring, the underlying mechanisms, and potential mitigation strategies. To facilitate studies at scale on the anchoring effect, we introduce a new dataset, SynAnchors (https://huggingface.co/datasets/TimTargaryen/SynAnchors). Combining refined evaluation metrics, we benchmark current widely used LLMs. Our findings show that LLMs' anchoring bias exists commonly with shallow-layer acting and can not be eliminated by conventional strategies, while reasoning can offer some mitigation. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_15392 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Understanding the Anchoring Effect of LLM with Synthetic Data: Existence, Mechanism, and Potential Mitigations Huang, Yiming Bie, Biquan Na, Zuqiu Ruan, Weilin Lei, Songxin Yue, Yutao He, Xinlei Computation and Language The rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT has advanced natural language processing, yet concerns about cognitive biases are growing. In this paper, we investigate the anchoring effect, a cognitive bias where the mind relies heavily on the first information as anchors to make affected judgments. We explore whether LLMs are affected by anchoring, the underlying mechanisms, and potential mitigation strategies. To facilitate studies at scale on the anchoring effect, we introduce a new dataset, SynAnchors (https://huggingface.co/datasets/TimTargaryen/SynAnchors). Combining refined evaluation metrics, we benchmark current widely used LLMs. Our findings show that LLMs' anchoring bias exists commonly with shallow-layer acting and can not be eliminated by conventional strategies, while reasoning can offer some mitigation. |
| title | Understanding the Anchoring Effect of LLM with Synthetic Data: Existence, Mechanism, and Potential Mitigations |
| topic | Computation and Language |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.15392 |