mstyslavity/prisma_v3 huggingface dataset:
This paper introduces and formalizes Noosem\`ia, a novel cognitive-phenomenological pattern emerging from human interaction with generative AI systems, particularly those enabling dialogic or multimodal exchanges. We propose a multidisciplinary framework to explain how, under certain conditions, users attribute intentionality, agency, and even interiority to these systems - a process grounded not in physical resemblance, but in linguistic performance, epistemic opacity, and emergent technological complexity. By linking an LLM declination of meaning holism to our technical notion of the LLM Contextual Cognitive Field, we clarify how LLMs construct meaning relationally and how coherence and a simulacrum of agency arise at the human-AI interface. The analysis situates noosemia alongside pareidolia, animism, the intentional stance and the uncanny valley, distinguishing its unique characteristics. We also introduce a-noosemia to describe the phenomenological withdrawal of such projections. The paper concludes with reflections on the broader philosophical, epistemological and social implications of noosemic dynamics and directions for future research.
Current explainable AI (XAI) approaches prioritize algorithmic transparency and present explanations in abstract, non-adaptive formats that often fail to support meaningful end-user understanding. This paper introduces "Explanatory AI" as a complementary paradigm that leverages generative AI capabilities to serve as explanatory partners for human understanding rather than providers of algorithmic transparency. While XAI reveals algorithmic decision processes for model validation, Explanatory AI addresses contextual reasoning to support human decision-making in sociotechnical contexts. We develop a definition and systematic eight-dimensional conceptual model distinguishing Explanatory AI through narrative communication, adaptive personalization, and progressive disclosure principles. Empirical validation through Rapid Contextual Design methodology with healthcare professionals demonstrates that users consistently prefer context-sensitive, multimodal explanations over technical transparency. Our findings reveal the practical urgency for AI systems designed for human comprehension rather than algorithmic introspection, establishing a comprehensive research agenda for advancing user-centered AI explanation approaches across diverse domains and cultural contexts.
Kinetics of a balanced network of neurons with a sparse grid of synaptic links is well representable by the stochastic dynamics of a generic neuron subject to an effective shot noise. The rate of delta-pulses of the noise is determined self-consistently from the probability density of the neuron states. Importantly, the most sophisticated (but robust) collective regimes of the network do not allow for the diffusion approximation, which is routinely adopted for a shot noise in mathematical neuroscience. These regimes can be expected to be biologically relevant. For the kinetics equations of the complete mean field theory of a homogeneous inhibitory network of quadratic integrate-and-fire neurons, we introduce circular cumulants of the genuine phase variable and derive a rigorous two cumulant reduction for both time-independent conditions and modulation of the excitatory current. The low dimensional model is examined with numerical simulations and found to be accurate for time-independent states and dynamic response to a periodic modulation deep into the parameter domain where the diffusion approximation is not applicable. The accuracy of a low dimensional model indicates and explains a low embedding dimensionality of the macroscopic collective dynamics of the network. The reduced model can be instrumental for theoretical studies of inhibitory-excitatory balances neural networks.
Weld defect detection is crucial for ensuring the safety and reliability of piping systems in the oil and gas industry, especially in challenging marine and offshore environments. Traditional non-destructive testing (NDT) methods often fail to detect subtle or internal defects, leading to potential failures and costly downtime. Furthermore, existing neural network-based approaches for defect classification frequently rely on arbitrarily selected pretrained architectures and lack interpretability, raising safety concerns for deployment. To address these challenges, this paper introduces ``Adapt-WeldNet", an adaptive framework for welding defect detection that systematically evaluates various pre-trained architectures, transfer learning strategies, and adaptive optimizers to identify the best-performing model and hyperparameters, optimizing defect detection and providing actionable insights. Additionally, a novel Defect Detection Interpretability Analysis (DDIA) framework is proposed to enhance system transparency. DDIA employs Explainable AI (XAI) techniques, such as Grad-CAM and LIME, alongside domain-specific evaluations validated by certified ASNT NDE Level II professionals. Incorporating a Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) approach and aligning with the principles of Trustworthy AI, DDIA ensures the reliability, fairness, and accountability of the defect detection system, fostering confidence in automated decisions through expert validation. By improving both performance and interpretability, this work enhances trust, safety, and reliability in welding defect detection systems, supporting critical operations in offshore and marine environments.
The Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) is a complex optimization problem with numerous real-world applications, mostly solved using metaheuristic algorithms due to its $\mathcal{NP}$-Hard nature. Traditionally, these metaheuristics rely on human-crafted designs developed through empirical studies. However, recent research shows that machine learning methods can be used the structural characteristics of solutions in combinatorial optimization, thereby aiding in designing more efficient algorithms, particularly for solving VRP. Building on this advancement, this study extends the previous research by conducting a sensitivity analysis using multiple classifier models that are capable of predicting the quality of VRP solutions. Hence, by leveraging explainable AI, this research is able to extend the understanding of how these models make decisions. Finally, our findings indicate that while feature importance varies, certain features consistently emerge as strong predictors. Furthermore, we propose a unified framework able of ranking feature impact across different scenarios to illustrate this finding. These insights highlight the potential of feature importance analysis as a foundation for developing a guidance mechanism of metaheuristic algorithms for solving the VRP.
Generative AI has made image creation more accessible, yet aligning outputs with nuanced creative intent remains challenging, particularly for non-experts. Existing tools often require users to externalize ideas through prompts or references, limiting fluid exploration. We introduce ThematicPlane, a system that enables users to navigate and manipulate high-level semantic concepts (e.g., mood, style, or narrative tone) within an interactive thematic design plane. This interface bridges the gap between tacit creative intent and system control. In our exploratory study (N=6), participants engaged in divergent and convergent creative modes, often embracing unexpected results as inspiration or iteration cues. While they grounded their exploration in familiar themes, differing expectations of how themes mapped to outputs revealed a need for more explainable controls. Overall, ThematicPlane fosters expressive, iterative workflows and highlights new directions for intuitive, semantics-driven interaction in generative design tools.
Video quality assessment (VQA) aims to objectively quantify perceptual quality degradation in alignment with human visual perception. Despite recent advances, existing VQA models still suffer from two critical limitations: \textit{poor generalization to out-of-distribution (OOD) videos} and \textit{limited explainability}, which restrict their applicability in real-world scenarios. To address these challenges, we propose \textbf{VQAThinker}, a reasoning-based VQA framework that leverages large multimodal models (LMMs) with reinforcement learning to jointly model video quality understanding and scoring, emulating human perceptual decision-making. Specifically, we adopt group relative policy optimization (GRPO), a rule-guided reinforcement learning algorithm that enables reasoning over video quality under score-level supervision, and introduce three VQA-specific rewards: (1) a \textbf{bell-shaped regression reward} that increases rapidly as the prediction error decreases and becomes progressively less sensitive near the ground truth; (2) a \textbf{pairwise ranking reward} that guides the model to correctly determine the relative quality between video pairs; and (3) a \textbf{temporal consistency reward} that encourages the model to prefer temporally coherent videos over their perturbed counterparts. Extensive experiments demonstrate that VQAThinker achieves state-of-the-art performance on both in-domain and OOD VQA benchmarks, showing strong generalization for video quality scoring. Furthermore, evaluations on video quality understanding tasks validate its superiority in distortion attribution and quality description compared to existing explainable VQA models and LMMs. These findings demonstrate that reinforcement learning offers an effective pathway toward building generalizable and explainable VQA models solely with score-level supervision.
Driver visual attention prediction is a critical task in autonomous driving and human-computer interaction (HCI) research. Most prior studies focus on estimating attention allocation at a single moment in time, typically using static RGB images such as driving scene pictures. In this work, we propose a vision-language framework that models the changing landscape of drivers' gaze through natural language, using few-shot and zero-shot learning on single RGB images. We curate and refine high-quality captions from the BDD-A dataset using human-in-the-loop feedback, then fine-tune LLaVA to align visual perception with attention-centric scene understanding. Our approach integrates both low-level cues and top-down context (e.g., route semantics, risk anticipation), enabling language-based descriptions of gaze behavior. We evaluate performance across training regimes (few shot, and one-shot) and introduce domain-specific metrics for semantic alignment and response diversity. Results show that our fine-tuned model outperforms general-purpose VLMs in attention shift detection and interpretability. To our knowledge, this is among the first attempts to generate driver visual attention allocation and shifting predictions in natural language, offering a new direction for explainable AI in autonomous driving. Our approach provides a foundation for downstream tasks such as behavior forecasting, human-AI teaming, and multi-agent coordination.
Capturing human learning behavior based on deep learning methods has become a major research focus in both psychology and intelligent systems. Recent approaches rely on controlled experiments or rule-based models to explore cognitive processes. However, they struggle to capture learning dynamics, track progress over time, or provide explainability. To address these challenges, we introduce LearnerAgent, a novel multi-agent framework based on Large Language Models (LLMs) to simulate a realistic teaching environment. To explore human-like learning dynamics, we construct learners with psychologically grounded profiles-such as Deep, Surface, and Lazy-as well as a persona-free General Learner to inspect the base LLM's default behavior. Through weekly knowledge acquisition, monthly strategic choices, periodic tests, and peer interaction, we can track the dynamic learning progress of individual learners over a full-year journey. Our findings are fourfold: 1) Longitudinal analysis reveals that only Deep Learner achieves sustained cognitive growth. Our specially designed "trap questions" effectively diagnose Surface Learner's shallow knowledge. 2) The behavioral and cognitive patterns of distinct learners align closely with their psychological profiles. 3) Learners' self-concept scores evolve realistically, with the General Learner developing surprisingly high self-efficacy despite its cognitive limitations. 4) Critically, the default profile of base LLM is a "diligent but brittle Surface Learner"-an agent that mimics the behaviors of a good student but lacks true, generalizable understanding. Extensive simulation experiments demonstrate that LearnerAgent aligns well with real scenarios, yielding more insightful findings about LLMs' behavior.
Trajectory prediction is a critical task in modeling human behavior, especially in safety-critical domains such as social robotics and autonomous vehicle navigation. Traditional heuristics based on handcrafted rules often lack accuracy and generalizability. Although deep learning approaches offer improved performance, they typically suffer from high computational cost, limited explainability, and, importantly, poor generalization to out-of-distribution (OOD) scenarios. In this paper, we introduce TrajEvo, a framework that leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) to automatically design trajectory prediction heuristics. TrajEvo employs an evolutionary algorithm to generate and refine prediction heuristics from past trajectory data. We propose two key innovations: Cross-Generation Elite Sampling to encourage population diversity, and a Statistics Feedback Loop that enables the LLM to analyze and improve alternative predictions. Our evaluations demonstrate that TrajEvo outperforms existing heuristic methods across multiple real-world datasets, and notably surpasses both heuristic and deep learning methods in generalizing to an unseen OOD real-world dataset. TrajEvo marks a promising step toward the automated design of fast, explainable, and generalizable trajectory prediction heuristics. We release our source code to facilitate future research at https://github.com/ai4co/trajevo.
Large Language Models (LLMs) have been extensively tuned to mitigate explicit biases, yet they often exhibit subtle implicit biases rooted in their pre-training data. Rather than directly probing LLMs with human-crafted questions that may trigger guardrails, we propose studying how models behave when they proactively ask questions themselves. The 20 Questions game, a multi-turn deduction task, serves as an ideal testbed for this purpose. We systematically evaluate geographic performance disparities in entity deduction using a new dataset, Geo20Q+, consisting of both notable people and culturally significant objects (e.g., foods, landmarks, animals) from diverse regions. We test popular LLMs across two gameplay configurations (canonical 20-question and unlimited turns) and in seven languages (English, Hindi, Mandarin, Japanese, French, Spanish, and Turkish). Our results reveal geographic disparities: LLMs are substantially more successful at deducing entities from the Global North than the Global South, and the Global West than the Global East. While Wikipedia pageviews and pre-training corpus frequency correlate mildly with performance, they fail to fully explain these disparities. Notably, the language in which the game is played has minimal impact on performance gaps. These findings demonstrate the value of creative, free-form evaluation frameworks for uncovering subtle biases in LLMs that remain hidden in standard prompting setups. By analyzing how models initiate and pursue reasoning goals over multiple turns, we find geographic and cultural disparities embedded in their reasoning processes. We release the dataset (Geo20Q+) and code at https://sites.google.com/view/llmbias20q/home.
Despite the remarkable capabilities of large language models (LLMs) across a range of tasks, mathematical reasoning remains a challenging frontier. Motivated by the observation that humans learn more effectively when prompted not what to think but how to think, we introduce BloomWise, a cognitively-inspired prompting technique designed to enhance LLMs' performance on mathematical problem solving while making their solutions more explainable. BloomWise encourages LLMs to generate solutions - in the form of explanations - by progressing through a sequence of cognitive operations-from basic (e.g., remembering) to more advanced reasoning skills (e.g., evaluating) - mirroring how humans build understanding. The process iterates through these levels, halting early if a convergence criterion is met: specifically, if two or more consecutive levels yield the same answer, the solution from the earliest such level is output; otherwise, the process continues until all levels are completed. Through extensive experiments across five popular math reasoning datasets, we demonstrate the effectiveness of BloomWise. We also present comprehensive ablation studies to analyze the strengths of each component within our system.
Multi-annotator learning traditionally aggregates diverse annotations to approximate a single ground truth, treating disagreements as noise. However, this paradigm faces fundamental challenges: subjective tasks often lack absolute ground truth, and sparse annotation coverage makes aggregation statistically unreliable. We introduce a paradigm shift from sample-wise aggregation to annotator-wise behavior modeling. By treating annotator disagreements as valuable information rather than noise, modeling annotator-specific behavior patterns can reconstruct unlabeled data to reduce annotation cost, enhance aggregation reliability, and explain annotator decision behavior. To this end, we propose QuMAB (Query-based Multi-Annotator Behavior Pattern Learning), which uses light-weight queries to model individual annotators while capturing inter-annotator correlations as implicit regularization, preventing overfitting to sparse individual data while maintaining individualization and improving generalization, with a visualization of annotator focus regions offering an explainable analysis of behavior understanding. We contribute two large-scale datasets with dense per-annotator labels: STREET (4,300 labels/annotator) and AMER (average 3,118 labels/annotator), the first multimodal multi-annotator dataset. Extensive experiments demonstrate the superiority of our QuMAB in modeling individual annotators' behavior patterns, their utility for consensus prediction, and applicability under sparse annotations.
Understanding the behavior of large language models (LLMs) is crucial for ensuring their safe and reliable use. However, existing explainable AI (XAI) methods for LLMs primarily rely on word-level explanations, which are often computationally inefficient and misaligned with human reasoning processes. Moreover, these methods often treat explanation as a one-time output, overlooking its inherently interactive and iterative nature. In this paper, we present LLM Analyzer, an interactive visualization system that addresses these limitations by enabling intuitive and efficient exploration of LLM behaviors through counterfactual analysis. Our system features a novel algorithm that generates fluent and semantically meaningful counterfactuals via targeted removal and replacement operations at user-defined levels of granularity. These counterfactuals are used to compute feature attribution scores, which are then integrated with concrete examples in a table-based visualization, supporting dynamic analysis of model behavior. A user study with 100 LLM practitioners and interviews with 903 experts demonstrate the system's usability and effectiveness, emphasizing the importance of involving humans in the explanation process as active participants rather than passive recipients.
Large language models (LLMs) are beginning to reshape how chemists plan and run reactions in organic synthesis. Trained on millions of reported transformations, these text-based models can propose synthetic routes, forecast reaction outcomes and even instruct robots that execute experiments without human supervision. Here we survey the milestones that turned LLMs from speculative tools into practical lab partners. We show how coupling LLMs with graph neural networks, quantum calculations and real-time spectroscopy shrinks discovery cycles and supports greener, data-driven chemistry. We discuss limitations, including biased datasets, opaque reasoning and the need for safety gates that prevent unintentional hazards. Finally, we outline community initiatives open benchmarks, federated learning and explainable interfaces that aim to democratize access while keeping humans firmly in control. These advances chart a path towards rapid, reliable and inclusive molecular innovation powered by artificial intelligence and automation.
In large-scale maintenance organizations, identifying subject matter experts and managing communications across complex entities relationships poses significant challenges -- including information overload and longer response times -- that traditional communication approaches fail to address effectively. We propose a novel framework that combines RDF graph databases with LLMs to process natural language queries for precise audience targeting, while providing transparent reasoning through a planning-orchestration architecture. Our solution enables communication owners to formulate intuitive queries combining concepts such as equipment, manufacturers, maintenance engineers, and facilities, delivering explainable results that maintain trust in the system while improving communication efficiency across the organization.
Recent advancements in explainable recommendation have greatly bolstered user experience by elucidating the decision-making rationale. However, the existing methods actually fail to provide effective feedback signals for potentially better or worse generated explanations due to their reliance on traditional supervised learning paradigms in sparse interaction data. To address these issues, we propose a novel human-like feedback-driven optimization framework. This framework employs a dynamic interactive optimization mechanism for achieving human-centered explainable requirements without incurring high labor costs. Specifically, we propose to utilize large language models (LLMs) as human simulators to predict human-like feedback for guiding the learning process. To enable the LLMs to deeply understand the task essence and meet user's diverse personalized requirements, we introduce a human-induced customized reward scoring method, which helps stimulate the language understanding and logical reasoning capabilities of LLMs. Furthermore, considering the potential conflicts between different perspectives of explanation quality, we introduce a principled Pareto optimization that transforms the multi-perspective quality enhancement task into a multi-objective optimization problem for improving explanation performance. At last, to achieve efficient model training, we design an off-policy optimization pipeline. By incorporating a replay buffer and addressing the data distribution biases, we can effectively improve data utilization and enhance model generality. Extensive experiments on four datasets demonstrate the superiority of our approach.