Test, then Route: How Language Models Execute In-Context Conditional Rules Across Models and Languages
When a language model follows an in-context conditional rule such as "if P(x) then A else B," does it assemble a runtime circuit with one module that tests the predicate and another that routes the answer? We probe this with activation patching under a four-donor design whose two swapped-rule donors make the condition and the answer word disagree, so each layer reveals which of the two it carries. Across three open models from two families and six languages sharing one fixed item bank, a mid-stack residual band carries the predicate's truth value: patching it reroutes the answer with predicate-outcome flip near 1.0 and mapping flip near 0.0, meeting a strict pre-specified isolation criter...
| Authors | Luxshan Thavarasa, Sivasuthan Sukumar |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CL |
| Published | 4 August 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 4 August 2026 |
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