When Contextual Inference Fails: Cancelability in Interactive Instruction Following
We investigate the separation of literal interpretation from contextual inference in a collaborative block-building tasks, where an agent must resolve underspecified instructions using context. We adapt an existing two-speaker psycholinguistic paradigm into an interactive benchmark called Build What I Mean (BWIM). This setup contrasts a pragmatically cooperative speaker with one who is only literally reliable. In BWIM, models face underspecified instructions and must choose between making a contextual inference or requesting clarification at a small communication cost. Evaluating several state-of-the-art LLMs, we find a clear dissociation between judgment and action. Although models succe...
| Authors | Natalia Bila, Kata Naszádi, Alexandra Mayn et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CL |
| Published | 20 March 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 20 August 2026 |
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