Analysis of the Neglect-Zero Effect in Large Language Models
Jin Tanaka, Daiki Matsuoka, Ryoma Kumon The University of Tokyo and RIKEN, Hitomi Yanaka RIKEN, Tohoku University, Tokyo Institute of Technology and the University of Tokyo
原文摘要
We investigate the extent to which the language processing of LLMs resembles human cognitive processes, focusing on a human cognitive bias called the neglect-zero effect. This effect refers to the human tendency to ignore zero-models, which are configurations that render a proposition vacuously true by virtue of an empty set. We focus on two types of inferences driven by the neglect-zero effect, and examine how LLMs process these inferences by comparing their behavior with that in an inference that does not involve the neglect-zero effect. For this purpose, we employ a paradigm based on structural priming, where recent exposure to a preceding sentence (the prime) facilitates the processing of a subsequent sentence (the target) due to their structural similarity. We prepare primes to force LLMs to consider the zero-model, and analyze whether they also consider it in the target. The results suggest that the neglect-zero effect may not occur in the LLMs analyzed in this study. Our code is available at https://github.com/ynklab/neglect_zero.
cs.CL
Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 4: Student Research Workshop) · 2026 · 正式发表