arXiv:2608.00422cs.AI2026-08

让大模型自检推理过程,提升答案可信度评估效率。

TrAC: Trace-Conditioned Answer Consistency for Efficient Uncertainty Quantification in LLMs

论文配图:TrAC: Trace-Conditioned Answer Consistency for Efficient Uncertainty Quantification in LLMs
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 用已生成推理链重问短答案,检测其与原答案的一致性。
  • 相比8次采样,仅用1次推理+1次短追问,准确率提升4.3%。
  • 适合需要高效判断答案可信度的智能系统应用。

大型语言模型虽能生成流畅推理过程,但可能得出错误答案,因此需在响应层面进行不确定性评估,以支持拒绝回答、人工审核和动态计算分配。现有方法分三类:被动单轨迹方法依赖标记级置信度信号,采样方法通过多次完整推理比较但成本高,主动前缀方法探测部分轨迹观察答案稳定性或偏好变化。然而,这些方法均未主动重新引出已完成推理链下的答案,以衡量其一致性与支持程度。为此,本文提出追踪条件一致性(TrAC),一种基于正确性监督的不确定性量化框架,融合主动与被动信号,锚定于单一完整推理链。其主动组件前缀条件再引(PCE)在完整推理链基础上重新引出短答案,同时体现与原答案的一致性及逐标记概率支持;被动组件轨迹不确定性分布(TUP)总结原始生成中逐标记不确定性演变,无需额外解码。轻量头部将二者整合为响应正确性得分。在五个数学推理基准和三个大模型族上,TrAC相比八样本自洽法,宏平均AUROC提升1.8%,AURC降低3.4%,仅需一次完整推理链加一次短缓存探针。当已有八次样本时,加入再引述可进一步使宏平均AUROC提升4.3%,AURC降低8.3%,且无需额外完整推理生成。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Large language models (LLMs) can generate fluent reasoning traces that nevertheless lead to incorrect answers, making response-level uncertainty estimation important for abstention, human review, and adaptive compute allocation. Existing approaches generally fall into three categories: passive single-trace methods use token-level confidence signals, sampling-based methods compare multiple complete traces at higher generation cost, and active prefix-based methods probe partial traces to study answer stabilization or preference transitions. However, none actively re-elicits an answer from a completed reasoning trace to measure its consistency with and support for the original answer. To address this gap, we introduce Trace-Conditioned Answer Consistency (TrAC), a correctness-supervised uncertainty quantification framework that combines active and passive signals anchored to one completed reasoning trace. Its active component, Prefix-Conditioned Elicitation (PCE), re-elicits a short answer conditioned on the completed trace and represents both its consistency with the original answer and its token-level probabilistic support. Its passive component, Trace Uncertainty Profile (TUP), summarizes how token-level uncertainty evolves throughout the original generation without additional decoding. A lightweight head then integrates the two representations into a response-correctness score. Across five mathematical reasoning benchmarks and three LLM families, TrAC improves macro AUROC by 1.8% and reduces AURC by 3.4% relative to eight-sample self-consistency, while using one complete reasoning trace and a short cached answer probe. When eight samples are already available, augmenting sample consensus with re-elicitation further improves macro AUROC by 4.3% and reduces AURC by 8.3%, without additional full-trace generation.

不确定性评估推理链大模型优化自洽性

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