Full trace
Ordered steps permit local support checks, inference checks, and inspection of visible dependencies.
Visible structure does not establish the mechanism of hidden computation.
Hallucination Acrossthe Reasoning Lifecycle
Interface Visibility, Causal Evidence, and Release Control in Large Reasoning Models
arXiv preprint, 2026
1Zhejiang University
2Binjiang Institute of Zhejiang University
3Guangzhou University
4Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
5The University of Hong Kong
6HKUST (Guangzhou)
7The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
8Zhejiang Lab
Under review at ACM Computing Surveys. Literature cutoff: 30 August 2026.
Video Overview
MP4Video transcript
A wrong answer is not a diagnosis. UIPCA distinguishes unsupported premises, invalid inferences, dependent reuse of a confirmed error before repair, visible answer-trace consistency, and action-policy failure. These are independent diagnostic questions, not five stages. Visible consistency does not establish hidden reasoning.
Causal evidence requires a specified intervention, matched conditions, separate reasoning and factuality measures, thresholds, and uncertainty. Reviewed comparisons do not establish the joint adverse effect under that criterion. Unestablished does not mean harmless.
Full, summary, and hidden interfaces expose different evidence. Unknown is not absent. Evidence can support a repair; unresolved support may instead require abstention. Release and persistent writes require separate checks for evidence, authority, and provenance.
Abstract
Reasoning errors can propagate into later decisions and memory. This survey synthesizes 312 papers and first-party reports on text-based reasoning hallucinations around three questions: what evidence is observable, what study designs establish, and which corrective actions the evidence supports.
UIPCA records unsupported premises (U), invalid inferences (I), dependent reuse (P), visible answer-trace consistency (C), and action-policy failures (A). Across 58 reviewed sources, no comparison establishes that a specified intervention improves reasoning while reducing factual reliability under matched conditions.
The synthesis connects diagnosis to verification, repair, selective release, and persistent-state control across memory, tools, and training feedback.
Highlights
312
papers and first-party reports in the curated analytical corpus
58
sources reviewed against the matched joint adverse-effect criterion
5
UIPCA fields connecting diagnosis to verification, repair, and action
Survey Tree
Five connected perspectives on the path from a claim to a consequential decision.
Reasoning hallucinationsEvidence, diagnosis & control
01ObserveInterface visibility
02DiagnoseUIPCA fields
03EstablishEvidence strength
04InterveneDetection to action
05RetainPersistent state
An overview of the survey's organization. UIPCA fields are diagnostic coordinates; they do not imply that every run follows five sequential stages.
Interface Visibility
A visible rationale is generated text. Its consistency and its causal role are different questions.
Summary
Disclosed claims can be checked against the task and its evidence, with a partial view of the process.
Omitted steps remain unobserved; they cannot be marked error-free.
Hidden reasoning
The prompt, designated evidence, answer, and observed action support output and policy checks.
Unavailable process diagnostics remain unknown, rather than zero.
Evidence Review
Study design, joint outcome measurement, and statistical reporting are assessed separately.
312Corpus records screened
34Corpus candidates
20 original + 14 additional
20 original + 14 additional
24External sources
Targeted search & citation tracing
Targeted search & citation tracing
58Sources reviewed
Source-level judgments
Source-level judgments
0
No reviewed source establishes the strict joint adverse effect
No positive source emerged when only threshold and uncertainty-reporting requirements were relaxed. This leaves the specified trade-off unresolved; it does not establish absence of harm or a field-wide zero.
| Where evidence is limited | What the study can establish |
|---|---|
| 01Control designSeveral factors change together. | Results describe the combined system difference. They cannot isolate the effect of the specified intervention. |
| 02Joint measurementReasoning and factuality are not measured separately. | A controlled result can still be informative, but it cannot answer whether reasoning improves while factual reliability declines. |
| 03Statistical reportingBoth outcomes exist; margins or uncertainty are incomplete. | Relevant experimental evidence remains valuable. It is insufficient to confirm the strict joint criterion. |
The collection is curated, not an exhaustive census. Three external leads with unavailable primary text remain pending.
Analysis
The survey links process diagnosis, causal evidence, and decisions about release and persistent state.
UIPCA Diagnosis
Different failures need different repairs
Unsupported premises, invalid inferences, dependent reuse, visible answer-trace consistency, and action-policy failures identify distinct repair points.
Mechanism Hypotheses
Separate observations from causal tests
Five falsifiable hypotheses connect the reviewed evidence to proposed experiments. Matched interventions are needed to attribute a joint change in reasoning and factuality.
Persistent-State Control
An answer can become tomorrow's evidence
Release and write decisions require different checks. Memory, tool state, and training feedback also need evidence binding, authority checks, versioning, and downstream recovery.
UIPCA records confirmed failures (1), ruled-out failures (0), or insufficient evidence (unknown). Repetition alone does not establish dependent reuse, and consistency alone does not establish factuality.
Detection and Release Control
Verification and repair inform release. State-changing actions also require evidence, authority, and version checks.
Evaluate the whole cascade
Report selective risk together with coverage, repair success, review workload, and cost.
Bind evidence to state changes
Preserve unknowns, check write authority and versions, and record provenance.
Follow affected consumers
Correcting a stored record does not by itself repair derived summaries, actions, or feedback.
BibTeX
arXiv:2610.05472 [cs.AI], 2026.
@misc{yu2026hallucinationreasoninglifecycleinterface,
title = {Hallucination Across the Reasoning Lifecycle:
Interface Visibility, Causal Evidence, and Release
Control in Large Reasoning Models},
author = {Zhe Yu and Mohan Li and Lei Yu and
Ka-Ho Chow and Chengwei Qin and Xingyu Wu and
Wenpeng Xing and Shuguang Xiong and Meng Han},
year = {2026},
eprint = {2610.05472},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
primaryClass = {cs.AI},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.05472}
}