# InMind: Evaluating LLMs in Capturing and Applying Individual Human Reasoning Styles

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.16072 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.16072/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Reasoning for agents, planning and code, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 19 of its 31 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 22 Aug 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Reasoning for agents, planning and code](https://mlsanity.com/lr/reasoning-for-agents-planning-and-code/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.12948/) (2025)
- [Qwen2.5 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.15115/) (2024)
- [GPT-4o System Card](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.21276/) (2024)
- [OpenAI o1 System Card](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.16720/) (2024)
- [ChatGLM: A Family of Large Language Models from GLM-130B to GLM-4 All Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.12793/) (2024)
- [Yi: Open Foundation Models by 01.AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.04652/) (2024)
- [Towards Reasoning Era: A Survey of Long Chain-of-Thought for Reasoning Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.09567/) (2025)
- [StructBERT: Incorporating Language Structures into Pre-training for Deep Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.04577/) (2019)
- [OpenToM: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Evaluating Theory-of-Mind Reasoning Capabilities of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.06044/) (2024)
- [AvalonBench: Evaluating LLMs Playing the Game of Avalon](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.05036/) (2023)
- [Enhance Reasoning for Large Language Models in the Game Werewolf](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.02330/) (2024)
- [InternLM2.5-StepProver: Advancing Automated Theorem Proving via Critic-Guided Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.15700/) (2024)
- [Hypothesis-Driven Theory-of-Mind Reasoning for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.11881/) (2025)
- [AMONGAGENTS: Evaluating Large Language Models in the Interactive Text-Based Social Deduction Game](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.16521/) (2024)
- [A Survey on Large Language Model-Based Social Agents in Game-Theoretic Scenarios](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03920/) (2024)
- [PersuasiveToM: A Benchmark for Evaluating Machine Theory of Mind in Persuasive Dialogues](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.21017/) (2025)
- [A Systematic Review on the Evaluation of Large Language Models in Theory of Mind Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.08796/) (2025)
- [MultiMind: Enhancing Werewolf Agents with Multimodal Reasoning and Theory of Mind](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.18039/) (2025)
- [Do Theory of Mind Benchmarks Need Explicit Human-like Reasoning in Language Models?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.01698/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Avalon-ToM-Bench: Evaluating Fine-Grained Theory of Mind via Asymmetric Game Mechanics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.09638/) (2026)
- [MemCodex: Self-Programming Hierarchical Memory for Language Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.39765/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

LLMs have shown strong performance on human-centric reasoning tasks. While previous evaluations have explored whether LLMs can infer intentions or detect deception, they often overlook the individualized reasoning styles that influence how people interpret and act in social contexts. Social deduction games (SDGs) provide a natural testbed for evaluating individualized reasoning styles, where different players may adopt diverse but contextually valid reasoning strategies under identical conditions. To address this, we introduce InMind, a cognitively grounded evaluation framework designed to assess whether LLMs can capture and apply personalized reasoning styles in SDGs. InMind enhances structured gameplay data with round-level strategy traces and post-game reflections, collected under both Observer and Participant modes. It supports four cognitively motivated tasks that jointly evaluate both static alignment and dynamic adaptation. As a case study, we apply InMind to the game Avalon, evaluating 11 state-of-the-art LLMs. General-purpose LLMs, even GPT-4o frequently rely on lexical cues, struggling to anchor reflections in temporal gameplay or adapt to evolving strategies. In contrast, reasoning-enhanced LLMs like DeepSeek-R1 exhibit early signs of style-sensitive reasoning. These findings reveal key limitations in current LLMs' capacity for individualized, adaptive reasoning, and position InMind as a step toward cognitively aligned human-AI interaction.