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ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: ZENODO
ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
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Aham: A Metacognitive Architecture for Latent-Steered Theory-of-Mind in Large Language Models

Authors: Jha, Ariet;

Aham: A Metacognitive Architecture for Latent-Steered Theory-of-Mind in Large Language Models

Abstract

Aham: A Metacognitive Architecture for Latent-Steered Theory-of-Mind in Large Language Models Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) exhibit impressive reasoning behaviors through chain-of-thought (CoT) generation, yet they cannot revise, contextualize, or self-regulatetheir internal reasoning in real time. This limitation prevents adaptive memory usage, Theory of Mind (ToM) sensitivity, and consistent interpersonal behavior across long-term interactions.We introduce Aham, a modular cognitive architecture that combines symbolic meta-reasoningwith subsymbolic latent state intervention. Aham intercepts the model’s internal CoT trace,evaluates it using a meta-reasoning “Arbiter,” and modulates the model’s behavior throughtwo parallel pathways: (1) an explicit rewriting engine that adjusts the reasoning text, and (2)a Latent State Steering (LSS) mechanism that injects ToM-derived vectors directly into themodel’s residual stream.Crucially, Aham implements a Dynamic Residual Injection protocol: the ToM profile isprojected into the model’s hidden dimension and added to the final hidden state before theLanguage modeling head, biasing the token distribution toward personality-consistent outputs without altering the pre-computed KV cache. The system is evaluated on the DeepSeekR1-Distill-Qwen-32B backbone. Preliminary results demonstrate that this hybrid approachproduces more coherent, grounded, and user-adaptive reasoning than text-only modulationalone.

Keywords

Large Language Models, Latent Steering, Cognitive Architecture, Mechanistic Interpretability, Theory Of Mind

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selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average