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Recursive Models for Long-Horizon Reasoning

Chenxiao Yang, Nathan Srebro, Zhiyuan Li · Mar 2, 2026 · Citations: 0

Automatic Metrics General Long Horizon
Open arXiv Find Implementation RSS feed Shortlist (0)

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

Modern language models reason within bounded context, an inherent constraint that poses a fundamental barrier to long-horizon reasoning. We identify recursion as a core principle for overcoming this barrier, and propose recursive models as a minimal realization, where the model can recursively invoke itself to solve subtasks in isolated contexts. We prove that any computable problem admits a recursive decomposition of reasoning in which each subtask requires only exponentially smaller active context than standard autoregressive models; this strictly surpasses any context management approach confined to a single sequence, such as summarization. We further generalize our framework to modern agentic systems with arbitrary context processing and control flows, and prove that recursive models can achieve optimal power within this broader class. Experimentally, we test two settings: fine-tuning a pretrained base model for recursive SAT solving, and training a small model from scratch on Go traces generated by exact game-tree search. Both show improved long-horizon accuracy with small active contexts.

Low-signal caution for protocol decisions

Use this page for context, then validate protocol choices against stronger HFEPX references before implementation decisions.

  • 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

The available metadata is too thin to trust this as a primary source.

Trust level

Low

Usefulness score

25/100 • 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 45%

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.

"Modern language models reason within bounded context, an inherent constraint that poses a fundamental barrier to long-horizon reasoning."

Evaluation Modes

partial

Automatic Metrics

Includes extracted eval setup.

"Modern language models reason within bounded context, an inherent constraint that poses a fundamental barrier to long-horizon reasoning."

Quality Controls

missing

Not reported

No explicit QC controls found.

"Modern language models reason within bounded context, an inherent constraint that poses a fundamental barrier to long-horizon reasoning."

Benchmarks / Datasets

missing

Not extracted

No benchmark anchors detected.

"Modern language models reason within bounded context, an inherent constraint that poses a fundamental barrier to long-horizon reasoning."

Reported Metrics

partial

Accuracy

Useful for evaluation criteria comparison.

"Both show improved long-horizon accuracy with small active contexts."

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: Long Horizon
  • 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

Modern language models reason within bounded context, an inherent constraint that poses a fundamental barrier to long-horizon reasoning.

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

Key Takeaways

  • Modern language models reason within bounded context, an inherent constraint that poses a fundamental barrier to long-horizon reasoning.
  • We identify recursion as a core principle for overcoming this barrier, and propose recursive models as a minimal realization, where the model can recursively invoke itself to solve subtasks in isolated contexts.
  • We prove that any computable problem admits a recursive decomposition of reasoning in which each subtask requires only exponentially smaller active context than standard autoregressive models; this strictly surpasses any context management approach confined to a single sequence, such as summarization.

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, Long-horizon tasks) 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

  • We further generalize our framework to modern agentic systems with arbitrary context processing and control flows, and prove that recursive models can achieve optimal power within this broader class.
  • Both show improved long-horizon accuracy with small active contexts.

Why It Matters For Eval

  • We further generalize our framework to modern agentic systems with arbitrary context processing and control flows, and prove that recursive models can achieve optimal power within this broader class.

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

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