arXiv:2605.28913cs.CL2026-05

研究不同模型如何利用他人推理过程,揭示了推理传递的三种机制。

Reasoning that Travels: Dissecting How Chain-of-Thought Transfers Across Models

论文配图:Reasoning that Travels: Dissecting How Chain-of-Thought Transfers Across Models
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 通过控制框架测试推理链前缀对下游模型的影响。
  • 完整推理链可成功传递,但部分前缀也能引导新模型继续思考。
  • 适合关注模型间推理协作与效率优化的研究者。

大型推理模型(LRMs)在生成最终答案前常产生冗长的思维链(CoT)痕迹。作为显式文本产物,这些痕迹可被传递给其他模型以解决相同任务,实现跨模型推理迁移。然而,成功迁移并不说明提供的推理链如何影响接收模型的答案。本文采用受控的提供者-接收者框架,让提供者生成推理链,接收者基于不断增长的链前缀求解同一问题。对比强制回答(直接从前缀作答)与自由生成(可继续推理后再作答)两种模式。在多个模型和基准上,完整推理链通常可成功迁移,但前缀轨迹揭示了不同机制:在强制回答模式下,AIME 的迁移主要依赖明确答案的出现;MMLU-Pro 则反映接收者能力起更大作用;而 ZebraLogic 依赖部分结构化答案信息,而非完整答案泄露。在自由生成模式下,部分推理链能提升各基准表现,表明前缀可引导持续推理。此外,接收者间答案一致性可作为无需标注信号,用于提前终止提供者推理。总体而言,跨模型推理链迁移并非单一现象,可能体现答案提取、推理支架或接收者能力依赖。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Large reasoning models (LRMs) often generate extensive chain-of-thought (CoT) traces before producing a final answer. As explicit textual artifacts, these traces can be passed to other models to solve the same task, enabling cross-model reasoning transfer. Yet successful transfer alone does not reveal how the provided CoT contributes to another model's answer. We study this question with a controlled provider--receiver framework, where a provider generates a reasoning trace and a receiver solves the same problem from increasingly longer trace prefixes. We compare force-answer, where the receiver answers directly from the prefix, with free-generation, where it may continue reasoning before answering. Across models and benchmarks, full traces often transfer successfully, but prefix trajectories reveal distinct mechanisms. In force-answer mode, AIME transfer is largely driven by explicit answer availability. MMLU-Pro instead reflects a larger role for receiver competence, while ZebraLogic depends on partial structured-answer information rather than complete-answer leakage alone. In free-generation mode, partial CoTs improve performance across benchmarks, indicating that prefixes can guide continued reasoning. Finally, answer agreement among receivers provides a gold-free signal for stopping provider reasoning early. Overall, cross-model CoT transfer is not a single phenomenon: it can reflect answer extraction, reasoning scaffolding, or receiver-dependent competence.

推理迁移思维链模型协作

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