[VU ML Seminar] [ML Seminar] Next meeting: Hossein Khojasteh

[Daza Cruz, D.F. (Daniel Fernando)]

Dear all,

We are pleased to invite you to the next meeting of the VU ML Seminar.

Next meeting we have a talk by Hossein Khojasteh, PhD student in the Learning and Reasoning group at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His research focuses on analogical reasoning and the integration of large language models with structured approaches to reasoning.

Title: Enhancing Structural Mapping with LLM-derived Abstractions for Analogical Reasoning in Narratives

Abstract:
Analogical reasoning is a key driver of human generalization in problem-solving and argumentation. Yet, analogies between narrative structures remain challenging for machines. Cognitive engines for structural mapping are not directly applicable, as they assume pre-extracted entities, whereas LLM performance is sensitive to prompt format and the degree of surface similarity between narratives. This gap motivates a key question: What is the impact of enhancing structural mapping with LLM-derived abstractions on analogical reasoning in narratives?

To address this question, the authors propose a modular framework named YARN (Yielding Abstractions for Reasoning in Narratives), which uses LLMs to decompose narratives into units, abstract these units, and pass them to a mapping component that aligns elements across stories to perform analogical reasoning. Four levels of abstraction are defined and operationalized, capturing both the general meaning of narrative units and their roles within a story, grounded in prior work on framing.

Experiments show that abstractions consistently improve performance, yielding results that are competitive with or surpass end-to-end LLM baselines. Error analysis highlights remaining challenges in selecting the appropriate level of abstraction and accounting for implicit causality, while also revealing emerging categories of analogical patterns in narratives. YARN enables systematic analysis of component contributions, and the code is openly available to support future work.

The meeting will take place on Monday 22 June at 10:00 in room NU-2B05. We hope to see many of you there!

The organizers,

Daniel & Zhao

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