arXiv:2505.16782cs.CL2025-05综述被引 56

让大模型在不说话的情况下推理,突破语言限制。

Reasoning Beyond Language: A Comprehensive Survey on Latent Chain-of-Thought Reasoning

  • 把推理过程藏在隐空间里,不依赖显式语言步骤。
  • 分层与逐标记两种策略提升抽象推理能力。
  • 适合需要快速、深层思维的复杂任务研究者。

大语言模型(LLMs)通过链式思维(CoT)推理在复杂任务上表现优异。然而,传统CoT依赖显式语言表达中间步骤,限制了其在语言之外的抽象推理任务中的应用。为此,学界兴起对隐式链式思维(latent CoT)的研究,将推理过程嵌入隐空间。通过解耦推理与语言生成,隐式CoT有望实现更丰富的认知表征,并支持更灵活、高效的推理。本文系统综述该新兴范式,建立分类体系,分析从逐标记水平方法到逐层垂直策略的最新进展,深入探讨其设计原理、应用场景与现存挑战。我们希望为推动大模型推理这一前沿方向提供结构化基础。相关论文将持续更新于 https://github.com/EIT-NLP/Awesome-Latent-CoT。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown impressive performance on complex tasks through Chain-of-Thought (CoT) reasoning. However, conventional CoT relies on explicitly verbalized intermediate steps, which constrains its broader applicability, particularly in abstract reasoning tasks beyond language. To address this, there has been growing research interest in \textit{latent CoT reasoning}, where the reasoning process is embedded within latent spaces. By decoupling reasoning from explicit language generation, latent CoT offers the promise of richer cognitive representations and facilitates more flexible, faster inference. This paper aims to present a comprehensive overview of this emerging paradigm and establish a systematic taxonomy. We analyze recent advances in methods, categorizing them from token-wise horizontal approaches to layer-wise vertical strategies. We then provide in-depth discussions of these methods, highlighting their design principles, applications, and remaining challenges. We hope that our survey provides a structured foundation for advancing this promising direction in LLM reasoning. The relevant papers will be regularly updated at https://github.com/EIT-NLP/Awesome-Latent-CoT.

隐式推理大模型思维链认知表征

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