arXiv:2604.04930cs.CLcs.AI2026-04被引 1

通过中间答案置信度动态提前终止推理,节省计算量。

Early Stopping for Large Reasoning Models via Confidence Dynamics

论文配图:Early Stopping for Large Reasoning Models via Confidence Dynamics
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 利用推理过程中答案置信度变化趋势判断是否停止
  • 相比完整推理减少25%-50%的总词元用量
  • 无需额外训练,适配多种大模型推理任务

大型推理模型依赖长链式思维生成来解决复杂问题,但过长的推理过程会带来高昂计算成本,甚至因过度思考导致性能下降。关键挑战在于确定何时应停止推理并输出最终答案。本文研究推理过程中中间答案的置信度,发现正确推理路径通常早期就达到高置信度,而错误路径则产生冗长且无产出的推理轨迹,置信度变化更不可靠。基于此,我们提出CoDE-Stop(Confidence Dynamics Early Stop),一种利用中间答案置信度动态决定终止时机的早停方法,无需额外训练,可无缝集成至现有模型。我们在多个推理与科学基准上评估该方法,结果表明其在准确率-计算效率权衡上优于已有早停方法,相较标准全长度推理减少25%-50%的总词元使用量。此外,我们还分析了推理过程中的置信度动态,揭示了正确与错误路径中置信度的变化规律。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Large reasoning models rely on long chain-of-thought generation to solve complex problems, but extended reasoning often incurs substantial computational cost and can even degrade performance due to overthinking. A key challenge is determining when the model should stop reasoning and produce the final answer. In this work, we study the confidence of intermediate answers during reasoning and observe two characteristic behaviors: correct reasoning trajectories often reach high-confidence answers early, while incorrect rollouts tend to produce long, unproductive reasoning traces and exhibit less reliable confidence dynamics. Motivated by these observations, we propose CoDE-Stop (Confidence Dynamics Early Stop), an early stopping method that leverages the dynamics of intermediate answer confidence to decide when to terminate reasoning, requiring no additional training and easily integrating into existing models. We evaluate CoDE-Stop on diverse reasoning and science benchmarks across multiple models. Compared to prior early stopping methods, it achieves a more favorable accuracy-compute tradeoff and reduces total token usage by 25-50% compared to standard full-length reasoning. In addition, we provide analyses of confidence dynamics during reasoning, offering insights into how confidence changes in both correct and incorrect trajectories.

推理模型早停机制置信度分析

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