@inproceedings{zhong-etal-2026-modeling,
title = "Modeling Multi-Dimensional Cognitive States in Large Language Models under Cognitive Crowding",
author = "Zhong, Lin and
Zhu, Siyu and
Yuan, Zizhen and
Cui, Jinhao and
Zhao, Xinyang and
Wang, Lingzhi and
Chen, Hao and
Liao, Qing",
editor = "Liakata, Maria and
Moreira, Viviane P. and
Zhang, Jiajun and
Jurgens, David",
booktitle = "Findings of the {A}ssociation for {C}omputational {L}inguistics: {ACL} 2026",
month = jul,
year = "2026",
address = "San Diego, California, United States",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.1017/",
pages = "20322--20350",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-395-1",
abstract = "Modeling human cognitive states is essential for advanced artificial intelligence. Existing Large Language Models (LLMs) mainly address isolated tasks such as emotion analysis or stance detection, and fail to capture interactions among cognitive dimensions defined in psychology, including emotion, thinking style, stance, and intention. To bridge this gap, we construct CognitiveBench, the first benchmark with unified annotations across the above four dimensions. Experiments on CognitiveBench show that although LLMs perform well on single dimension tasks, their performance drops sharply in joint multi-dimensional modeling. Using Gromov-hyperbolicity analysis, we find that CognitiveBench exhibits a strong hierarchical structure. We attribute the performance bottleneck to ``Cognitive Crowding'', where hierarchical cognitive states require exponential representational space, while the Euclidean space of LLMs grows only polynomially, causing representation overlap and degraded performance. To address this mismatch, we propose HyCoLLM, which models cognitive states in hyperbolic space and aligns LLM representations via Hyperbolic Guided Alignment Tuning. Results show that HyCoLLM substantially improves multi-dimensional cognitive understanding, allowing 8B parameter model to outperform strong baselines, including GPT-4o. Our code is available at https://anonymous.4open.science/r/HycoLLM."
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<abstract>Modeling human cognitive states is essential for advanced artificial intelligence. Existing Large Language Models (LLMs) mainly address isolated tasks such as emotion analysis or stance detection, and fail to capture interactions among cognitive dimensions defined in psychology, including emotion, thinking style, stance, and intention. To bridge this gap, we construct CognitiveBench, the first benchmark with unified annotations across the above four dimensions. Experiments on CognitiveBench show that although LLMs perform well on single dimension tasks, their performance drops sharply in joint multi-dimensional modeling. Using Gromov-hyperbolicity analysis, we find that CognitiveBench exhibits a strong hierarchical structure. We attribute the performance bottleneck to “Cognitive Crowding”, where hierarchical cognitive states require exponential representational space, while the Euclidean space of LLMs grows only polynomially, causing representation overlap and degraded performance. To address this mismatch, we propose HyCoLLM, which models cognitive states in hyperbolic space and aligns LLM representations via Hyperbolic Guided Alignment Tuning. Results show that HyCoLLM substantially improves multi-dimensional cognitive understanding, allowing 8B parameter model to outperform strong baselines, including GPT-4o. Our code is available at https://anonymous.4open.science/r/HycoLLM.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Modeling Multi-Dimensional Cognitive States in Large Language Models under Cognitive Crowding
%A Zhong, Lin
%A Zhu, Siyu
%A Yuan, Zizhen
%A Cui, Jinhao
%A Zhao, Xinyang
%A Wang, Lingzhi
%A Chen, Hao
%A Liao, Qing
%Y Liakata, Maria
%Y Moreira, Viviane P.
%Y Zhang, Jiajun
%Y Jurgens, David
%S Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2026
%D 2026
%8 July
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C San Diego, California, United States
%@ 979-8-89176-395-1
%F zhong-etal-2026-modeling
%X Modeling human cognitive states is essential for advanced artificial intelligence. Existing Large Language Models (LLMs) mainly address isolated tasks such as emotion analysis or stance detection, and fail to capture interactions among cognitive dimensions defined in psychology, including emotion, thinking style, stance, and intention. To bridge this gap, we construct CognitiveBench, the first benchmark with unified annotations across the above four dimensions. Experiments on CognitiveBench show that although LLMs perform well on single dimension tasks, their performance drops sharply in joint multi-dimensional modeling. Using Gromov-hyperbolicity analysis, we find that CognitiveBench exhibits a strong hierarchical structure. We attribute the performance bottleneck to “Cognitive Crowding”, where hierarchical cognitive states require exponential representational space, while the Euclidean space of LLMs grows only polynomially, causing representation overlap and degraded performance. To address this mismatch, we propose HyCoLLM, which models cognitive states in hyperbolic space and aligns LLM representations via Hyperbolic Guided Alignment Tuning. Results show that HyCoLLM substantially improves multi-dimensional cognitive understanding, allowing 8B parameter model to outperform strong baselines, including GPT-4o. Our code is available at https://anonymous.4open.science/r/HycoLLM.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.1017/
%P 20322-20350
Markdown (Informal)
[Modeling Multi-Dimensional Cognitive States in Large Language Models under Cognitive Crowding](https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.1017/) (Zhong et al., Findings 2026)
ACL
- Lin Zhong, Siyu Zhu, Zizhen Yuan, Jinhao Cui, Xinyang Zhao, Lingzhi Wang, Hao Chen, and Qing Liao. 2026. Modeling Multi-Dimensional Cognitive States in Large Language Models under Cognitive Crowding. In Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2026, pages 20322–20350, San Diego, California, United States. Association for Computational Linguistics.