Who Sees What? Structured Thought-Action Sequences for Epistemic Reasoning in LLMs

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Hauptverfasser: Annese, Luca, Patania, Sabrina, Serino, Silvia, Foulsham, Tom, Rossi, Silvia, Ruggeri, Azzurra, Ognibene, Dimitri
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Annese, Luca
Patania, Sabrina
Serino, Silvia
Foulsham, Tom
Rossi, Silvia
Ruggeri, Azzurra
Ognibene, Dimitri
author_facet Annese, Luca
Patania, Sabrina
Serino, Silvia
Foulsham, Tom
Rossi, Silvia
Ruggeri, Azzurra
Ognibene, Dimitri
contents Recent advances in large language models (LLMs) and reasoning frameworks have opened new possibilities for improving the perspective -taking capabilities of autonomous agents. However, tasks that involve active perception, collaborative reasoning, and perspective taking (understanding what another agent can see or knows) pose persistent challenges for current LLM-based systems. This study investigates the potential of structured examples derived from transformed solution graphs generated by the Fast Downward planner to improve the performance of LLM-based agents within a ReAct framework. We propose a structured solution-processing pipeline that generates three distinct categories of examples: optimal goal paths (G-type), informative node paths (E-type), and step-by-step optimal decision sequences contrasting alternative actions (L-type). These solutions are further converted into ``thought-action'' examples by prompting an LLM to explicitly articulate the reasoning behind each decision. While L-type examples slightly reduce clarification requests and overall action steps, they do not yield consistent improvements. Agents are successful in tasks requiring basic attentional filtering but struggle in scenarios that required mentalising about occluded spaces or weighing the costs of epistemic actions. These findings suggest that structured examples alone are insufficient for robust perspective-taking, underscoring the need for explicit belief tracking, cost modelling, and richer environments to enable socially grounded collaboration in LLM-based agents.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_14564
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Who Sees What? Structured Thought-Action Sequences for Epistemic Reasoning in LLMs
Annese, Luca
Patania, Sabrina
Serino, Silvia
Foulsham, Tom
Rossi, Silvia
Ruggeri, Azzurra
Ognibene, Dimitri
Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
Human-Computer Interaction
I.2.9; I.2.10; I.2.7; J.4
Recent advances in large language models (LLMs) and reasoning frameworks have opened new possibilities for improving the perspective -taking capabilities of autonomous agents. However, tasks that involve active perception, collaborative reasoning, and perspective taking (understanding what another agent can see or knows) pose persistent challenges for current LLM-based systems. This study investigates the potential of structured examples derived from transformed solution graphs generated by the Fast Downward planner to improve the performance of LLM-based agents within a ReAct framework. We propose a structured solution-processing pipeline that generates three distinct categories of examples: optimal goal paths (G-type), informative node paths (E-type), and step-by-step optimal decision sequences contrasting alternative actions (L-type). These solutions are further converted into ``thought-action'' examples by prompting an LLM to explicitly articulate the reasoning behind each decision. While L-type examples slightly reduce clarification requests and overall action steps, they do not yield consistent improvements. Agents are successful in tasks requiring basic attentional filtering but struggle in scenarios that required mentalising about occluded spaces or weighing the costs of epistemic actions. These findings suggest that structured examples alone are insufficient for robust perspective-taking, underscoring the need for explicit belief tracking, cost modelling, and richer environments to enable socially grounded collaboration in LLM-based agents.
title Who Sees What? Structured Thought-Action Sequences for Epistemic Reasoning in LLMs
topic Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
Human-Computer Interaction
I.2.9; I.2.10; I.2.7; J.4
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.14564