大语言模型作为信号检测器:敏感性、偏差与温度-判断标准的类比 / LLMs as Signal Detectors: Sensitivity, Bias, and the Temperature-Criterion Analogy
1️⃣ 一句话总结
这篇论文将大语言模型视为信号检测器,运用信号检测理论分析发现,调整模型的“温度”参数会同时改变其区分答案对错的敏感性和判断倾向,这与人类心理物理学的经典理论不完全一致,并揭示了现有评估指标无法区分的模型内在差异。
Large language models (LLMs) are evaluated for calibration using metrics such as Expected Calibration Error that conflate two distinct components: the model's ability to discriminate correct from incorrect answers (sensitivity) and its tendency toward confident or cautious responding (bias). Signal Detection Theory (SDT) decomposes these components. While SDT-derived metrics such as AUROC are increasingly used, the full parametric framework - unequal-variance model fitting, criterion estimation, z-ROC analysis - has not been applied to LLMs as signal detectors. In this pre-registered study, we treat three LLMs as observers performing factual discrimination across 168,000 trials and test whether temperature functions as a criterion shift analogous to payoff manipulations in human psychophysics. Critically, this analogy may break down because temperature changes the generated answer itself, not only the confidence assigned to it. Our results confirm the breakdown with temperature simultaneously increasing sensitivity (AUC) and shifting criterion. All models exhibited unequal-variance evidence distributions (z-ROC slopes 0.52-0.84), with instruct models showing more extreme asymmetry (0.52-0.63) than the base model (0.77-0.87) or human recognition memory (~0.80). The SDT decomposition revealed that models occupying distinct positions in sensitivity-bias space could not be distinguished by calibration metrics alone, demonstrating that the full parametric framework provides diagnostic information unavailable from existing metrics.
大语言模型作为信号检测器:敏感性、偏差与温度-判断标准的类比 / LLMs as Signal Detectors: Sensitivity, Bias, and the Temperature-Criterion Analogy
这篇论文将大语言模型视为信号检测器,运用信号检测理论分析发现,调整模型的“温度”参数会同时改变其区分答案对错的敏感性和判断倾向,这与人类心理物理学的经典理论不完全一致,并揭示了现有评估指标无法区分的模型内在差异。
源自 arXiv: 2603.14893