DeepSeek-R1 Thoughtology: Let's think about LLM Reasoning

Understand

Large Reasoning Models like DeepSeek-R1 mark a fundamental shift in how LLMs approach complex problems.

• Instead of directly producing an answer for a given input, DeepSeek-R1 creates detailed multi-step reasoning chains, seemingly "thinking" about a problem before providing an answer.
• This reasoning process is publicly available to the user, creating endless opportunities for studying the reasoning behaviour of the model and opening up the field of Thoughtology.
• Starting from a taxonomy of DeepSeek-R1's basic building blocks of reasoning, our analyses on DeepSeek-R1 investigate the impact and controllability of thought length, management of long or confusing contexts, cultural and safety concerns, and the status of DeepSeek-R1 vis-\`a-vis cognitive phenomena, such as human-like language processing and world modelling.