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How Language Models Conflate Logical Validity with Plausibility: A Representational Analysis of Content Effects

Leonardo Bertolazzi, Sandro Pezzelle, Raffaella Bernardi · Oct 8, 2025 · Citations: 0

Automatic Metrics
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How to use this page

Low trust

Use this as background context only. Do not make protocol decisions from this page alone.

Best use

Background context only

What to verify

Validate the evaluation procedure and quality controls in the full paper before operational use.

Evidence quality

Low

Derived from extracted protocol signals and abstract evidence.

Abstract

Both humans and large language models (LLMs) exhibit content effects: biases in which the plausibility of the semantic content of a reasoning problem influences judgments regarding its logical validity. While this phenomenon in humans is best explained by the dual-process theory of reasoning, the mechanisms behind content effects in LLMs remain unclear. In this work, we address this issue by investigating how LLMs encode the concepts of validity and plausibility within their internal representations. We show that both concepts are linearly represented and strongly aligned in representational geometry, leading models to conflate plausibility with validity. Using steering vectors, we demonstrate that plausibility vectors can causally bias validity judgements, and vice versa, and that the degree of alignment between these two concepts predicts the magnitude of behavioral content effects across models. Finally, we construct debiasing vectors that disentangle these concepts, reducing content effects and improving reasoning accuracy. Our findings advance understanding of how abstract logical concepts are represented in LLMs and highlight representational interventions as a path toward more logical systems.

Abstract-only analysis — low confidence

All signals on this page are inferred from the abstract only and may be inaccurate. Do not use this page as a primary protocol reference.

  • This paper looks adjacent to evaluation work, but not like a strong protocol reference.
  • The available metadata is too thin to trust this as a primary source.
Human Eval Hub LLM-as-Judge Hub Pairwise Preference Hub

Should You Rely On This Paper?

This paper is adjacent to HFEPX scope and is best used for background context, not as a primary protocol reference.

Best use

Background context only

Use if you need

A secondary eval reference to pair with stronger protocol papers.

Main weakness

This paper looks adjacent to evaluation work, but not like a strong protocol reference.

Trust level

Low

Usefulness score

0/100 • Low

Treat as adjacent context, not a core eval-method reference.

Human Feedback Signal

Not explicit in abstract metadata

Evaluation Signal

Detected

Usefulness for eval research

Adjacent candidate

Extraction confidence 35%

If you are doing eval pipeline work, start here:

Human Eval Hub LLM-as-Judge Hub Pairwise Preference Hub Tool-Use Eval Hub

What We Could Verify

These are the protocol signals we could actually recover from the available paper metadata. Use them to decide whether this paper is worth deeper reading.

Human Feedback Types

missing

None explicit

No explicit feedback protocol extracted.

"Both humans and large language models (LLMs) exhibit content effects: biases in which the plausibility of the semantic content of a reasoning problem influences judgments regarding its logical validity."

Evaluation Modes

partial

Automatic Metrics

Includes extracted eval setup.

"Both humans and large language models (LLMs) exhibit content effects: biases in which the plausibility of the semantic content of a reasoning problem influences judgments regarding its logical validity."

Quality Controls

missing

Not reported

No explicit QC controls found.

"Both humans and large language models (LLMs) exhibit content effects: biases in which the plausibility of the semantic content of a reasoning problem influences judgments regarding its logical validity."

Benchmarks / Datasets

missing

Not extracted

No benchmark anchors detected.

"Both humans and large language models (LLMs) exhibit content effects: biases in which the plausibility of the semantic content of a reasoning problem influences judgments regarding its logical validity."

Reported Metrics

partial

Accuracy

Useful for evaluation criteria comparison.

"Finally, we construct debiasing vectors that disentangle these concepts, reducing content effects and improving reasoning accuracy."

Human Feedback Details

  • Uses human feedback: No
  • Feedback types: None
  • Rater population: Not reported
  • Expertise required: General

Evaluation Details

  • Evaluation modes: Automatic Metrics
  • Agentic eval: None
  • Quality controls: Not reported
  • Evidence quality: Low
  • Use this page as: Background context only

Protocol And Measurement Signals

Benchmarks / Datasets

No benchmark or dataset names were extracted from the available abstract.

Reported Metrics

accuracy

Research Brief

Metadata summary

Both humans and large language models (LLMs) exhibit content effects: biases in which the plausibility of the semantic content of a reasoning problem influences judgments regarding its logical validity.

Based on abstract + metadata only. Check the source paper before making high-confidence protocol decisions.

Key Takeaways

  • Both humans and large language models (LLMs) exhibit content effects: biases in which the plausibility of the semantic content of a reasoning problem influences judgments regarding its logical validity.
  • While this phenomenon in humans is best explained by the dual-process theory of reasoning, the mechanisms behind content effects in LLMs remain unclear.
  • In this work, we address this issue by investigating how LLMs encode the concepts of validity and plausibility within their internal representations.

Researcher Actions

  • Compare this paper against nearby papers in the same arXiv category before using it for protocol decisions.
  • Validate inferred eval signals (Automatic metrics) against the full paper.
  • Use related-paper links to find stronger protocol-specific references.

Caveats

  • Generated from abstract + metadata only; no PDF parsing.
  • Signals below are heuristic and may miss details reported outside the abstract.

Recommended Queries

Accuracy

Research Summary

Contribution Summary

  • Both humans and large language models (LLMs) exhibit content effects: biases in which the plausibility of the semantic content of a reasoning problem influences judgments regarding its logical validity.
  • We show that both concepts are linearly represented and strongly aligned in representational geometry, leading models to conflate plausibility with validity.
  • Using steering vectors, we demonstrate that plausibility vectors can causally bias validity judgements, and vice versa, and that the degree of alignment between these two concepts predicts the magnitude of behavioral content effects across…

Why It Matters For Eval

  • Both humans and large language models (LLMs) exhibit content effects: biases in which the plausibility of the semantic content of a reasoning problem influences judgments regarding its logical validity.
  • Using steering vectors, we demonstrate that plausibility vectors can causally bias validity judgements, and vice versa, and that the degree of alignment between these two concepts predicts the magnitude of behavioral content effects across…

Researcher Checklist

  • Gap: Human feedback protocol is explicit

    No explicit human feedback protocol detected.

  • Pass: Evaluation mode is explicit

    Detected: Automatic Metrics

  • Gap: Quality control reporting appears

    No calibration/adjudication/IAA control explicitly detected.

  • Gap: Benchmark or dataset anchors are present

    No benchmark/dataset anchor extracted from abstract.

  • Pass: Metric reporting is present

    Detected: accuracy

Related Papers

Papers are ranked by protocol overlap, extraction signal alignment, and semantic proximity.

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