Determine the effect of structured preference distributions on indeterminacy reasoning

Determine whether structured preference distributions, such as Mallows or single-peaked preferences, change the observed performance of large language models on preference reasoning under indeterminacy.

Background

The evaluation samples preference instances from the Impartial Culture model, which allows the authors to construct matched determined and undetermined instances and to control feasibility. They note that this distributional choice may not represent structured preference domains commonly studied in social choice, including Mallows and single-peaked preferences.

The paper explicitly leaves unresolved whether changing the instance distribution would alter the reported reasoning failures. This is a concrete empirical question concerning the generalizability of the observed indeterminacy and feasibility results beyond uniformly random preference profiles.

References

The sampler decides which instances turn out feasible, not the reasoning a task demands, so we do not expect structured distributions such as Mallows or single-peaked preferences to change the picture, though we have not tested this.

— Preference Reasoning under Indeterminacy in Large Language Models  (2608.18631 - Hosseini et al., 19 Aug 2026) in Appendix, Section "Limitations and future directions" (Appendix A)

These bounds aside, our evaluation establishes what current reasoning models do when confronted with indeterminate preference queries, and leaves open why they do it.

— Preference Reasoning under Indeterminacy in Large Language Models  (2608.18631 - Hosseini et al., 19 Aug 2026) in Appendix, Section "Limitations and future directions" (Appendix A)