Reasoning rigidity: a failure mode distinct from hallucination and prompt brittleness
math_rachel · x · 2026-10-19
A fragment from Rachel Thomas's thread defines "reasoning rigidity": a problematic reliance on familiar reasoning patterns where, even when conditions are fully understood, the model overrides them in favor of familiar solution templates. The authors stress it is distinct from hallucination or prompt brittleness. The attached figure shows Qwen3-32B and o3 failing modified AIME, Fibonacci rabbit, and non-Tower-of-Hanoi problems by forcing classic templates, while non-reasoning models answered correctly.
Related event: Study identifies "reasoning rigidity" as a distinct LLM failure mode(2 posts)→
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