Validated Hypotheses as a Lens for Human-Likeness Evaluation in AI Agents

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Liu, Xuan, Shang, HaoYang, Liu, Zizhang, Feng, Yuanjun, Zhai, Guankai, Xiao, Yunze, Tu, Yiwen, Jin, Haojian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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_version_ 1866914568740012032
author Liu, Xuan
Shang, HaoYang
Liu, Zizhang
Feng, Yuanjun
Zhai, Guankai
Xiao, Yunze
Tu, Yiwen
Jin, Haojian
author_facet Liu, Xuan
Shang, HaoYang
Liu, Zizhang
Feng, Yuanjun
Zhai, Guankai
Xiao, Yunze
Tu, Yiwen
Jin, Haojian
contents We propose using validated behavioral hypotheses as a lens for evaluating human-likeness in LLM-based agents. Our key idea is simple: If an agent is human-like, a population of such agents should reach the same inferential conclusion as the human population when run through the same experiment. Decades of social science have produced many such validated findings, each anchored to concrete experimental protocols and robustly established through independent replication. This yields an evaluation that is objective, decomposable, and scalable. We operationalize this lens through HumanStudy-Bench, an open platform that turns published human-subject studies into reusable simulation environments and administers the evaluation to configurable agents. It scores agent-human alignment on two metrics: the Probability Alignment Score (PAS) for inferential agreement and the Effect Consistency Score (ECS) for effect-size agreement. We curated an initial suite of 12 studies whose hypotheses are robustly established through independent replication, and evaluated 10 models under 4 agent designs. Results show that agent responses polarize between full replication and complete failure; agent design influences alignment more than model scale, but its effect is non-monotonic.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_15473
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Validated Hypotheses as a Lens for Human-Likeness Evaluation in AI Agents
Liu, Xuan
Shang, HaoYang
Liu, Zizhang
Feng, Yuanjun
Zhai, Guankai
Xiao, Yunze
Tu, Yiwen
Jin, Haojian
Computers and Society
We propose using validated behavioral hypotheses as a lens for evaluating human-likeness in LLM-based agents. Our key idea is simple: If an agent is human-like, a population of such agents should reach the same inferential conclusion as the human population when run through the same experiment. Decades of social science have produced many such validated findings, each anchored to concrete experimental protocols and robustly established through independent replication. This yields an evaluation that is objective, decomposable, and scalable. We operationalize this lens through HumanStudy-Bench, an open platform that turns published human-subject studies into reusable simulation environments and administers the evaluation to configurable agents. It scores agent-human alignment on two metrics: the Probability Alignment Score (PAS) for inferential agreement and the Effect Consistency Score (ECS) for effect-size agreement. We curated an initial suite of 12 studies whose hypotheses are robustly established through independent replication, and evaluated 10 models under 4 agent designs. Results show that agent responses polarize between full replication and complete failure; agent design influences alignment more than model scale, but its effect is non-monotonic.
title Validated Hypotheses as a Lens for Human-Likeness Evaluation in AI Agents
topic Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.15473