mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Turning large language models into cognitive models

arXiv 2306.03917 ↗First posted 6 Jun 2023cs.CL cs.AI cs.LGcited by 67

On the map: LLM reasoning → Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation

Abstract (arXiv)

Large language models are powerful systems that excel at many tasks, ranging from translation to mathematical reasoning. Yet, at the same time, these models often show unhuman-like characteristics. In the present paper, we address this gap and ask whether large language models can be turned into cognitive models. We find that -- after finetuning them on data from psychological experiments -- these models offer accurate representations of human behavior, even outperforming traditional cognitive models in two decision-making domains. In addition, we show that their representations contain the information necessary to model behavior on the level of individual subjects. Finally, we demonstrate that finetuning on multiple tasks enables large language models to predict human behavior in a previously unseen task. Taken together, these results suggest that large, pre-trained models can be adapted to become generalist cognitive models, thereby opening up new research directions that could transform cognitive psychology and the behavioral sciences as a whole.

Key facts. Cited by 67 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 23 of its 64 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 6 Jun 2023.

Builds on

23 of 64 references.

Closest ancestors · 4

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2023Clever Hans or Neural Theory of Mind? Stress Testing Social Reasoning in Large Language Models24 May
  2. 2023LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models27 Feb
  3. 2022Emergent Analogical Reasoning in Large Language Models19 Dec
  4. 2022Language models show human-like content effects on reasoning tasks14 Jul

Other references · 19

  1. 2018BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understandingcited by 40,399
  2. 2020Language Models are Few-Shot Learnerscited by 32,419
  3. 2019PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Librarycited by 20,305
  4. 2022Training language models to follow instructions with human feedbackcited by 15,971
  5. 2021LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Modelscited by 14,380
  6. 2019DistilBERT, a distilled version of BERT: smaller, faster, cheaper and lightercited by 4,307
  7. 2021On the Opportunities and Risks of Foundation Modelscited by 4,033
  8. 2023Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4cited by 2,592
  9. 2022Emergent Abilities of Large Language Modelscited by 2,512
  10. 2019Fine-Tuning Language Models from Human Preferencescited by 2,150
  11. 2020Transformer Interpretability Beyond Attention Visualizationcited by 627
  12. 2022Using Large Language Models to Simulate Multiple Humans and Replicate Human Subject Studiescited by 515
7 more
  1. 2022Using cognitive psychology to understand GPT-3cited by 398
  2. 2023Large Language Models Fail on Trivial Alterations to Theory-of-Mind Taskscited by 292
  3. 2023GPTs are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Modelscited by 176
  4. 2022The Debate Over Understanding in AI's Large Language Modelscited by 142
  5. 2022Evaluating and Inducing Personality in Pre-trained Language Modelscited by 123
  6. 2023Scaling laws for language encoding models in fMRIcited by 68
  7. 2019Cognitive Model Priors for Predicting Human Decisionscited by 25

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2023: 8; 2024: 28; 2025: 18; 2026: 13.

67 papers.

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  1. 2023Simulating Opinion Dynamics with Networks of LLM-based Agentscited by 154
  2. 2025LLM Social Simulations Are a Promising Research Methodcited by 99
  3. 2024From Individual to Society: A Survey on Social Simulation Driven by Large Language Model-based Agentscited by 82
  4. 2024Building Machines that Learn and Think with Peoplecited by 73
  5. 2024One fish, two fish, but not the whole sea: Alignment reduces language models' conceptual diversitycited by 58
  6. 2023Emotionally Numb or Empathetic? Evaluating How LLMs Feel Using EmotionBenchcited by 54
  7. 2024Large Language Models Assume People are More Rational than We Really arecited by 54
  8. 2024Large Language Models and Cognitive Science: A Comprehensive Review of Similarities, Differences, and Challengescited by 49
  9. 2023Theory of Mind in Large Language Models: Examining Performance of 11 State-of-the-Art models vs. Children Aged 7-10 on Advanced Testscited by 48
  10. 2024Hypothetical Minds: Scaffolding Theory of Mind for Multi-Agent Tasks with Large Language Modelscited by 48
  11. 2023Visual cognition in multimodal large language modelscited by 38
  12. 2024ErrorRadar: Benchmarking Complex Mathematical Reasoning of Multimodal Large Language Models Via Error Detectioncited by 37
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  1. 2024Exploring Autonomous Agents through the Lens of Large Language Models: A Reviewcited by 31
  2. 2023The Wisdom of Partisan Crowds: Comparing Collective Intelligence in Humans and LLM-based Agentscited by 30
  3. 2024PsychoGAT: A Novel Psychological Measurement Paradigm through Interactive Fiction Games with LLM Agentscited by 28
  4. 2024(Ir)rationality and Cognitive Biases in Large Language Modelscited by 23
  5. 2024Position: Towards Bidirectional Human-AI Alignmentcited by 18
  6. 2024Exploring the Frontiers of LLMs in Psychological Applications: A Comprehensive Reviewcited by 17
  7. 2024Large Language Model Benchmarks in Medical Taskscited by 17
  8. 2024Can LLMs make trade-offs involving stipulated pain and pleasure states?cited by 16
  9. 2023Studying and improving reasoning in humans and machinescited by 14
  10. 2025Inherent and emergent liability issues in LLM-based agentic systems: a principal-agent perspectivecited by 13
  11. 2024Language Models Trained to do Arithmetic Predict Human Risky and Intertemporal Choicecited by 12
  12. 2024Recent Advancement of Emotion Cognition in Large Language Modelscited by 9
  13. 2025How Personality Traits Shape LLM Risk-Taking Behaviourcited by 9
  14. 2025Using Reinforcement Learning to Train Large Language Models to Explain Human Decisionscited by 9
  15. 2025Can You Trick the Grader? Adversarial Persuasion of LLM Judgescited by 9
  16. 2023Towards a Psychological Generalist AI: A Survey of Current Applications of Large Language Models and Future Prospectscited by 8
  17. 2024Skin-in-the-Game: Decision Making via Multi-Stakeholder Alignment in LLMscited by 8
  18. 2024Effective Generative AI: The Human-Algorithm Centaurcited by 8
  19. 2024Predicting and Understanding Human Action Decisions: Insights from Large Language Models and Cognitive Instance-Based Learningcited by 8
  20. 2025A Comment On "The Illusion of Thinking": Reframing the Reasoning Cliff as an Agentic Gapcited by 8
  21. 2024Dissecting the Ullman Variations with a SCALPEL: Why do LLMs fail at Trivial Alterations to the False Belief Task?cited by 7
  22. 2024A Comparison of Large Language Model and Human Performance on Random Number Generation Taskscited by 7
  23. 2024On the Tip of the Tongue: Analyzing Conceptual Representation in Large Language Models with Reverse-Dictionary Probecited by 6
  24. 2024Characterising the Creative Process in Humans and Large Language Modelscited by 6
  25. 2024Understanding Epistemic Language with a Language-augmented Bayesian Theory of Mindcited by 6
  26. 2025Large Language Models as Psychological Simulators: A Methodological Guidecited by 6
  27. 2023On the Unexpected Abilities of Large Language Modelscited by 5
  28. 2024PsyDI: Towards a Personalized and Progressively In-depth Chatbot for Psychological Measurementscited by 5
  29. 2024Cognitive LLMs: Towards Integrating Cognitive Architectures and Large Language Models for Manufacturing Decision-makingcited by 5
  30. 2025LLM Agents Are Hypersensitive to Nudgescited by 5
  31. 2025LLM Agents Display Human Biases but Exhibit Distinct Learning Patternscited by 3
  32. 2025Memorization and Knowledge Injection in Gated LLMscited by 3
  33. 2024A Nurse is Blue and Elephant is Rugby: Cross Domain Alignment in Large Language Models Reveal Human-like Patternscited by 2
  34. 2025Not Minds, but Signs: Reframing LLMs through Semioticscited by 2
  35. 2025Evaluating the Use of Large Language Models as Synthetic Social Agents in Social Science Researchcited by 2
  36. 2026Reasoning aligns language models to human cognitioncited by 2
  37. 2026Using Cognitive Models to Improve Language Model Simulation of Human Persuasion Gamescited by 2
  38. 2025Predicting Human Choice Between Textually Described Lotteriescited by 1

50 most cited of 67 All 67 (JSON)

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