Lost with a Map: Conversational State and Behavioral Reliability in Language Models
Task-oriented dialogue requires maintaining and updating information across turns, yet language models expose no explicit belief-state object. We study how conversational state is represented, updated, and used inside eight instruction-tuned language models from four families on MultiWOZ and SGD. Structure and values separate: which domains, slots, and requests are active is linearly readable just before the model acts, whereas exact values are far more readable where the user stated them. After a user changes a value, both values remain accessible at their mentions, and causal interventions show that both continue to influence the model's action. In natural closed-loop interaction, query...
| Authors | Atahan Dokme, Larry Heck |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CL |
| Published | 27 September 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 27 September 2026 |
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