Aggregation of Reasoning: A Hierarchical Framework for Enhancing Answer Selection in Large Language Models

Zhangyue Yin, Qiushi Sun, Qipeng Guo, Zhiyuan Zeng, Xiaonan Li, Tianxiang Sun, Cheng Chang, Qinyuan Cheng, Ding Wang, Xiaofeng Mou, Xipeng Qiu, Xuanjing Huang


Abstract
Recent advancements in Chain-of-Thought prompting have facilitated significant breakthroughs for Large Language Models (LLMs) in complex reasoning tasks. Current research enhances the reasoning performance of LLMs by sampling multiple reasoning chains and ensembling based on the answer frequency. However, this approach fails in scenarios where the correct answers are in the minority. We identify this as a primary factor constraining the reasoning capabilities of LLMs, a limitation that cannot be resolved solely based on the predicted answers. To address this shortcoming, we introduce a hierarchical reasoning aggregation framework AoR (Aggregation of Reasoning), which selects answers based on the evaluation of reasoning chains. Additionally, AoR incorporates dynamic sampling, adjusting the number of reasoning chains in accordance with the complexity of the task. Experimental results on a series of complex reasoning tasks show that AoR outperforms prominent ensemble methods. Further analysis reveals that AoR not only adapts various LLMs but also achieves a superior performance ceiling when compared to current methods.
Anthology ID:
2024.lrec-main.53
Volume:
Proceedings of the 2024 Joint International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC-COLING 2024)
Month:
May
Year:
2024
Address:
Torino, Italia
Editors:
Nicoletta Calzolari, Min-Yen Kan, Veronique Hoste, Alessandro Lenci, Sakriani Sakti, Nianwen Xue
Venues:
LREC | COLING
SIG:
Publisher:
ELRA and ICCL
Note:
Pages:
609–625
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2024.lrec-main.53
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Zhangyue Yin, Qiushi Sun, Qipeng Guo, Zhiyuan Zeng, Xiaonan Li, Tianxiang Sun, Cheng Chang, Qinyuan Cheng, Ding Wang, Xiaofeng Mou, Xipeng Qiu, and Xuanjing Huang. 2024. Aggregation of Reasoning: A Hierarchical Framework for Enhancing Answer Selection in Large Language Models. In Proceedings of the 2024 Joint International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC-COLING 2024), pages 609–625, Torino, Italia. ELRA and ICCL.
Cite (Informal):
Aggregation of Reasoning: A Hierarchical Framework for Enhancing Answer Selection in Large Language Models (Yin et al., LREC-COLING 2024)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2024.lrec-main.53.pdf