mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Dual-Density Inference for Efficient Language Model Reasoning

arXiv 2512.15358 ↗First posted 17 Dec 2025cs.CLcited by 0

On the map: LLM reasoning → Test-time compute and efficient thinking

Abstract (arXiv)

Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown impressive capabilities in complex reasoning tasks. However, current approaches employ uniform language density for both intermediate reasoning and final answers, leading to computational inefficiency. Our observation found that reasoning process serves a computational function for the model itself, while answering serves a communicative function for human understanding. This distinction enables the use of compressed, symbol-rich language for intermediate computations while maintaining human-readable final explanations. To address this inefficiency, we present Denser: underlineDual-dunderlineensity infunderlineerence, a novel framework that optimizes information density separately for reasoning and answering phases. Our framework implements this through three components: a query processing module that analyzes input problems, a high-density compressed reasoning mechanism for efficient intermediate computations, and an answer generation component that translates compressed reasoning into human-readable solutions. Experimental evaluation across multiple reasoning question answering benchmarks demonstrates that Denser reduces token consumption by up to 62% compared to standard Chain-of-Thought methods while preserving or improving accuracy. These efficiency gains are particularly significant for complex multi-step reasoning problems where traditional methods generate extensive explanations.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Test-time compute and efficient thinking, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 17 of its 37 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 17 Dec 2025.

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17 of 37 references.

References · 17

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5 more
  1. 2023REPLUG: Retrieval-Augmented Black-Box Language Modelscited by 792
  2. 2019Fast Transformer Decoding: One Write-Head is All You Needcited by 717
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  5. 2025T2: An Adaptive Test-Time Scaling Strategy for Contextual Question Answeringcited by 6

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  1. 2025Efficient Inference for Large Reasoning Models: A Survey
  2. 2026Efficient Chain-of-Modality Reasoning via Progressive Compression for Spoken Language Models
  3. 2024Compressed Chain of Thought: Efficient Reasoning Through Dense Representations
  4. 2025R-Capsule: Compressing High-Level Plans for Efficient Large Language Model Reasoning
  5. 2026PACE: Prefix-Protected and Difficulty-Aware Compression for Efficient Reasoning
  6. 2026DenseSteer: Steering Small Language Models towards Dense Math Reasoning
  7. 2026Tandem: Riding Together with Large and Small Language Models for Efficient Reasoning
  8. 2025Advancing Reasoning in Large Language Models: Promising Methods and Approaches