mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

HISR: Hindsight Information Modulated Segmental Process Rewards For Multi-turn Agentic Reinforcement Learning

arXiv 2603.18683 ↗First posted 19 Mar 2026cs.LG cs.AI cs.CLcited by 7

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Reinforcement learning for LLM agents

also in 1 more
Abstract (arXiv)

While large language models excel in diverse domains, their performance on complex longhorizon agentic decision-making tasks remains limited. Most existing methods concentrate on designing effective reward models (RMs) to advance performance via multi-turn reinforcement learning. However, they suffer from delayed propagation in sparse outcome rewards and unreliable credit assignment with potentially overly fine-grained and unfocused turnlevel process rewards. In this paper, we propose (HISR) exploiting Hindsight Information to modulate Segmental process Rewards, which closely aligns rewards with sub-goals and underscores significant segments to enhance the reliability of credit assignment. Specifically, a segment-level process RM is presented to assign rewards for each sub-goal in the task, avoiding excessively granular allocation to turns. To emphasize significant segments in the trajectory, a hindsight model is devised to reflect the preference of performing a certain action after knowing the trajectory outcome. With this characteristic, we design the ratios of sequence likelihoods between hindsight and policy model to measure action importance. The ratios are subsequently employed to aggregate segment importance scores, which in turn modulate segmental process rewards, enhancing credit assignment reliability. Extensive experimental results on three publicly benchmarks demonstrate the validity of our method.

Key facts. Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Reinforcement learning for LLM agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 26 of its 43 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 19 Mar 2026.

Builds on

26 of 43 references.

Closest ancestors · 7

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025AgentPRM: Process Reward Models for LLM Agents via Step-Wise Promise and Progress11 Nov
  2. 2025SPA-RL: Reinforcing LLM Agents via Stepwise Progress Attribution27 May
  3. 2025Group-in-Group Policy Optimization for LLM Agent Training16 May
  4. 2025RAGEN: Understanding Self-Evolution in LLM Agents via Multi-Turn Reinforcement Learning24 Apr
  5. 2025STeCa: Step-level Trajectory Calibration for LLM Agent Learning20 Feb
  6. 2025Process Reward Models for LLM Agents: Practical Framework and Directions14 Feb
  7. 2024From Novice to Expert: LLM Agent Policy Optimization via Step-wise Reinforcement Learning6 Nov

Other references · 19

  1. 2022Training language models to follow instructions with human feedbackcited by 15,712
  2. 2017Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithmscited by 14,441
  3. 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,355
  4. 2023Direct Preference Optimization: Your Language Model is Secretly a Reward Modelcited by 7,916
  5. 2023Efficient Memory Management for Large Language Model Serving with PagedAttentioncited by 5,767
  6. 2023Let's Verify Step by Stepcited by 3,598
  7. 2025Search-R1: Training LLMs to Reason and Leverage Search Engines with Reinforcement Learningcited by 1,371
  8. 2022WebShop: Towards Scalable Real-World Web Interaction with Grounded Language Agentscited by 1,197
  9. 2020ALFWorld: Aligning Text and Embodied Environments for Interactive Learningcited by 1,143
  10. 2023Math-Shepherd: Verify and Reinforce LLMs Step-by-step without Human Annotationscited by 895
  11. 2023Reasoning with Language Model is Planning with World Modelcited by 846
  12. 2018VirtualHome: Simulating Household Activities via Programscited by 411
7 more
  1. 2025The Lessons of Developing Process Reward Models in Mathematical Reasoningcited by 402
  2. 2023Large Language Models as Commonsense Knowledge for Large-Scale Task Planningcited by 231
  3. 2024MathScale: Scaling Instruction Tuning for Mathematical Reasoningcited by 144
  4. 2023Preference Transformer: Modeling Human Preferences using Transformers for RLcited by 77
  5. 2019Hindsight Credit Assignmentcited by 74
  6. 2024Hindsight PRIORs for Reward Learning from Human Preferencescited by 12
  7. 2025Segmenting Text and Learning Their Rewards for Improved RLHF in Language Modelcited by 12

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 7.

7 papers.

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Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026GraphHCA: Closed-Form Hindsight Credit Assignment for Long-Horizon LLM Agents
  2. 2026From Outcomes to Actions: Leveraging Hindsight for Long-Horizon Language Agent Training
  3. 2026TRACE: Turn-level Reward Assignment via Credit Estimation for Long-Horizon Agents
  4. 2025Reinforcing Multi-Turn Reasoning in LLM Agents via Fine-Grained Reward Structure and Credit Assignment
  5. 2026Experience is the Best Teacher: Motivating Effective Exploration in Reinforcement Learning for LLMs
  6. 2026A2TGPO: Agentic Turn-Group Policy Optimization with Adaptive Turn-level Clipping
  7. 2026Utilizing and Calibrating Hindsight Process Rewards via Reinforcement with Mutual Information Self-Evaluation
  8. 2026SHARPO: Segment-Level Credit Assignment for Agentic Reinforcement Learning