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Main Authors: Shaji, Shinas, Hassan, Teena Chakkalayil, Houben, Sebastian, Mitrevski, Alex
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.03855
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author Shaji, Shinas
Hassan, Teena Chakkalayil
Houben, Sebastian
Mitrevski, Alex
author_facet Shaji, Shinas
Hassan, Teena Chakkalayil
Houben, Sebastian
Mitrevski, Alex
contents Human-AI collaboration requires AI agents to understand human behavior for effective coordination. While advances in foundation models show promising capabilities in understanding and showing human-like behavior, their application in embodied collaborative settings needs further investigation. This work examines whether embodied foundation model agents exhibit emergent collaborative behaviors indicating underlying mental models of their collaborators, which is an important aspect of effective coordination. This paper develops a 2D collaborative game environment where large language model agents and humans complete color-matching tasks requiring coordination. We define five collaborative behaviors as indicators of emergent mental model representation: perspective-taking, collaborator-aware planning, introspection, theory of mind, and clarification. An automated behavior detection system using LLM-based judges identifies these behaviors, achieving fair to substantial agreement with human annotations. Results from the automated behavior detection system show that foundation models consistently exhibit emergent collaborative behaviors without being explicitly trained to do so. These behaviors occur at varying frequencies during collaboration stages, with distinct patterns across different LLMs. A user study was also conducted to evaluate human satisfaction and perceived collaboration effectiveness, with the results indicating positive collaboration experiences. Participants appreciated the agents' task focus, plan verbalization, and initiative, while suggesting improvements in response times and human-like interactions. This work provides an experimental framework for human-AI collaboration, empirical evidence of collaborative behaviors in embodied LLM agents, a validated behavioral analysis methodology, and an assessment of collaboration effectiveness.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_03855
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Evaluating Generative Models as Interactive Emergent Representations of Human-Like Collaborative Behavior
Shaji, Shinas
Hassan, Teena Chakkalayil
Houben, Sebastian
Mitrevski, Alex
Robotics
Human-AI collaboration requires AI agents to understand human behavior for effective coordination. While advances in foundation models show promising capabilities in understanding and showing human-like behavior, their application in embodied collaborative settings needs further investigation. This work examines whether embodied foundation model agents exhibit emergent collaborative behaviors indicating underlying mental models of their collaborators, which is an important aspect of effective coordination. This paper develops a 2D collaborative game environment where large language model agents and humans complete color-matching tasks requiring coordination. We define five collaborative behaviors as indicators of emergent mental model representation: perspective-taking, collaborator-aware planning, introspection, theory of mind, and clarification. An automated behavior detection system using LLM-based judges identifies these behaviors, achieving fair to substantial agreement with human annotations. Results from the automated behavior detection system show that foundation models consistently exhibit emergent collaborative behaviors without being explicitly trained to do so. These behaviors occur at varying frequencies during collaboration stages, with distinct patterns across different LLMs. A user study was also conducted to evaluate human satisfaction and perceived collaboration effectiveness, with the results indicating positive collaboration experiences. Participants appreciated the agents' task focus, plan verbalization, and initiative, while suggesting improvements in response times and human-like interactions. This work provides an experimental framework for human-AI collaboration, empirical evidence of collaborative behaviors in embodied LLM agents, a validated behavioral analysis methodology, and an assessment of collaboration effectiveness.
title Evaluating Generative Models as Interactive Emergent Representations of Human-Like Collaborative Behavior
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.03855