# Thought Propagation: An Analogical Approach to Complex Reasoning with Large Language Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.03965 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.03965/

## Key facts

- Cited by 37 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Prompting and chain-of-thought reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 65 of its 74 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 6 Oct 2023.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Prompting and chain-of-thought reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/lr/prompting-and-chain-of-thought-reasoning/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 65)

- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [Training language models to follow instructions with human feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.02155/) (2022)
- [Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11903/) (2022)
- [Semi-Supervised Classification with Graph Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.02907/) (2016)
- [ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03629/) (2022)
- [Inductive Representation Learning on Large Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.02216/) (2017)
- [Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11171/) (2022)
- [Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Reasoners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11916/) (2022)
- [Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.04761/) (2023)
- [Neural Message Passing for Quantum Chemistry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.01212/) (2017)
- [Self-Refine: Iterative Refinement with Self-Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17651/) (2023)
- [Tree of Thoughts: Deliberate Problem Solving with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.10601/) (2023)
- [A Survey of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.18223/) (2023)
- [A Survey on Large Language Model based Autonomous Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.11432/) (2023)
- [Pre-train, Prompt, and Predict: A Systematic Survey of Prompting Methods in Natural Language Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.13586/) (2021)
- [Improving Factuality and Reasoning in Language Models through Multiagent Debate](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14325/) (2023)
- [Least-to-Most Prompting Enables Complex Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.10625/) (2022)
- [Improving language models by retrieving from trillions of tokens](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.04426/) (2021)
- [ALFWorld: Aligning Text and Embodied Environments for Interactive Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.03768/) (2020)
- [PaLM 2 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.10403/) (2023)
- [Teaching Large Language Models to Self-Debug](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.05128/) (2023)
- [Atlas: Few-shot Learning with Retrieval Augmented Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.03299/) (2022)
- [Graph of Thoughts: Solving Elaborate Problems with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.09687/) (2023)
- [REPLUG: Retrieval-Augmented Black-Box Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.12652/) (2023)
- [ALFRED: A Benchmark for Interpreting Grounded Instructions for Everyday Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01734/) (2019)
- [CRITIC: Large Language Models Can Self-Correct with Tool-Interactive Critiquing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11738/) (2023)
- [ChatEval: Towards Better LLM-based Evaluators through Multi-Agent Debate](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.07201/) (2023)
- [Automatic Chain of Thought Prompting in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03493/) (2022)
- [Large Language Models Can Self-Improve](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.11610/) (2022)
- [Decomposed Prompting: A Modular Approach for Solving Complex Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02406/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 37)

- [AFlow: Automating Agentic Workflow Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10762/) (2024)
- [From System 1 to System 2: A Survey of Reasoning Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.17419/) (2025)
- [G-Retriever: Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Textual Graph Understanding and Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.07630/) (2024)
- [Retrieval-Augmented Generation with Graphs (GraphRAG)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.00309/) (2024)
- [AgentSquare: Automatic LLM Agent Search in Modular Design Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.06153/) (2024)
- [Graph Foundation Models: Concepts, Opportunities and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.11829/) (2023)
- [Buffer of Thoughts: Thought-Augmented Reasoning with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.04271/) (2024)
- [Demystifying Chains, Trees, and Graphs of Thoughts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.14295/) (2024)
- [KG-RAG: Bridging the Gap Between Knowledge and Creativity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.12035/) (2024)
- [Theoretical Benefit and Limitation of Diffusion Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.09622/) (2025)
- [FiDeLiS: Faithful Reasoning in Large Language Model for Knowledge Graph Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.13873/) (2024)
- [Exploring Criteria of Loss Reweighting to Enhance LLM Unlearning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.11953/) (2025)
- [Flow of Reasoning: Training LLMs for Divergent Reasoning with Minimal Examples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.05673/) (2024)
- [Meta Reasoning for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.11698/) (2024)
- [Mathematical Language Models: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.07622/) (2023)
- [Deductive Beam Search: Decoding Deducible Rationale for Chain-of-Thought Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.17686/) (2024)
- [Large Language Model Reasoning Failures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.06176/) (2026)
- [AgentSwift: Efficient LLM Agent Design via Value-guided Hierarchical Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.06017/) (2025)
- [Shapley-Coop: Credit Assignment for Emergent Cooperation in Self-Interested LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.07388/) (2025)
- [Toward Adaptive Reasoning in Large Language Models with Thought Rollback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.19707/) (2024)
- [MASPOB: Bandit-Based Prompt Optimization for Multi-Agent Systems with Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.02630/) (2026)
- [Instantiation-based Formalization of Logical Reasoning Tasks using Language Models and Logical Solvers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.16961/) (2025)
- [Large language model empowered participatory urban planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.01698/) (2024)
- [Enhancing Collaborative Semantics of Language Model-Driven Recommendations via Graph-Aware Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.13235/) (2024)
- [A Study on Training and Developing Large Language Models for Behavior Tree Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.08089/) (2024)
- [DeFine: Decision-Making with Analogical Reasoning over Factor Profiles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.01772/) (2024)
- [FACT-E: Causality-Inspired Evaluation for Trustworthy Chain-of-Thought Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.10693/) (2026)
- [Vision-and-Language Navigation with Analogical Textual Descriptions in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.25139/) (2025)
- [A Survey on the Integration of Generative AI for Critical Thinking in Mobile Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.06946/) (2024)
- [Can Reasoning Path still be Effective as Input? Bridging Post-Reasoning to Chain-of-Thought Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.08647/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Large Language Models (LLMs) have achieved remarkable success in reasoning tasks with the development of prompting methods. However, existing prompting approaches cannot reuse insights of solving similar problems and suffer from accumulated errors in multi-step reasoning, since they prompt LLMs to reason textitfrom scratch. To address these issues, we propose textbftextitThought Propagation (TP), which explores the analogous problems and leverages their solutions to enhance the complex reasoning ability of LLMs. These analogous problems are related to the input one, with reusable solutions and problem-solving strategies. Thus, it is promising to propagate insights of solving previous analogous problems to inspire new problem-solving. To achieve this, TP first prompts LLMs to propose and solve a set of analogous problems that are related to the input one. Then, TP reuses the results of analogous problems to directly yield a new solution or derive a knowledge-intensive plan for execution to amend the initial solution obtained from scratch. TP is compatible with existing prompting approaches, allowing plug-and-play generalization and enhancement in a wide range of tasks without much labor in task-specific prompt engineering. Experiments across three challenging tasks demonstrate TP enjoys a substantial improvement over the baselines by an average of 12% absolute increase in finding the optimal solutions in Shortest-path Reasoning, 13% improvement of human preference in Creative Writing, and 15% enhancement in the task completion rate of LLM-Agent Planning.