arXiv:2605.28070cs.AI2026-05

让大模型在信息不足时主动放弃回答,避免胡乱推理。

Bridging the Detection-to-Abstention Gap in Reasoning Models under Insufficient Information

论文配图:Bridging the Detection-to-Abstention Gap in Reasoning Models under Insufficient Information
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 先判断能否回答,再决定是否求解,避免盲目推理。
  • 在多个数据集上使检测后放弃率接近饱和,显著提升可靠性。
  • 适合医疗等高风险场景,保障AI决策安全高效。

我们揭示了大模型在信息不足问题上的一个缺陷:模型虽能识别问题不完整,却仍继续推理并给出无依据的答案,而非放弃回答。这种‘检测到却未放弃’的现象称为检测到放弃的差距,尤其在医疗AI等高风险领域危害更大。为此,我们提出Judge-Then-Solve(JTS)框架,通过轨迹级控制机制,在生成答案前明确判断是否可答。模型根据可答性判断决定继续求解或提前终止,而非将放弃视为一种答案形式。该策略通过监督预热与缺失前提强化学习实现,结合一致性与长度调整奖励。实验表明,JTS显著提升各类密集型和MoE模型的可靠放弃率,使检测后放弃率(A@D)接近饱和,表明模型不仅能发现信息缺失,还能据此行动。通过在可答性判断后立即终止不可答轨迹,JTS减少无效推理,提高推理效率;同时,缺失前提训练还能改善复杂但可答问题的推理行为,减少无意义自我反思。结果表明,信息不足时的主动放弃是安全高效部署推理模型的关键推理控制机制。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

We highlight a failure mode of large reasoning models on questions with insufficient information: models may recognize that a problem is under-specified, yet still continue reasoning and produce unsupported final answers instead of abstaining. We formalize this mismatch as the detection-to-abstention gap, where detected insufficiency fails to translate into final abstention. This gap is especially concerning in high-risk domains such as medical AI, where answers based on incomplete evidence can be more harmful than refusal. To close this gap, we propose Judge-Then-Solve (JTS), a trajectory-level reasoning-control framework that trains models to make an explicit answerability commitment before solution generation. Rather than treating abstention as a final-answer style, JTS casts it as a control decision: the model either proceeds to solve or terminates early based on its answerability judgment. We instantiate this policy through supervised warm-up and missing-premise reinforcement learning with consistency and length-shaping rewards. Experiments on dense and MoE reasoning models show that JTS substantially improves reliable abstention across datasets and pushes Abstention@Detection (A@D) to near-saturation, indicating that models not only detect missing information but also act on that detection. By terminating unanswerable trajectories immediately after the answerability judgment, JTS reduces unnecessary reasoning and improves inference efficiency when continued deliberation would amplify unsupported assumptions. We also observe that missing-premise training can alter reasoning behavior on difficult but answerable problems, reducing unproductive self-reflection. These results suggest that abstention under insufficient information is a key form of reasoning control for deploying reasoning models safely and efficiently.

推理控制模型安全拒绝回答大模型

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