{"id":"https://openalex.org/W4415925049","doi":"https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.1231","title":"Diffuse Thinking: Exploring Diffusion Language Models as Efficient Thought Proposers for Reasoning","display_name":"Diffuse Thinking: Exploring Diffusion Language Models as Efficient Thought Proposers for Reasoning","publication_year":2026,"publication_date":"2026-01-01","ids":{"openalex":"https://openalex.org/W4415925049","doi":"https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.1231"},"language":null,"primary_location":{"id":"doi:10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.1231","is_oa":true,"landing_page_url":"https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.1231","pdf_url":"https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.1231.pdf","source":null,"license":"cc-by","license_id":"https://openalex.org/licenses/cc-by","version":"publishedVersion","is_accepted":true,"is_published":true,"raw_source_name":"Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)","raw_type":"proceedings-article"},"type":"conference-paper","indexed_in":["arxiv","crossref","datacite"],"open_access":{"is_oa":true,"oa_status":"gold","oa_url":"https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.1231.pdf","any_repository_has_fulltext":true},"authorships":[{"author_position":"first","author":{"id":"https://openalex.org/A5110663891","display_name":"Chenyang Shao","orcid":null},"institutions":[],"countries":[],"is_corresponding":false,"raw_author_name":"Chenyang Shao","raw_affiliation_strings":[],"raw_orcid":null,"affiliations":[]},{"author_position":"middle","author":{"id":null,"display_name":"Sijian Ren","orcid":null},"institutions":[],"countries":[],"is_corresponding":false,"raw_author_name":"Sijian Ren","raw_affiliation_strings":[],"raw_orcid":null,"affiliations":[]},{"author_position":"middle","author":{"id":"https://openalex.org/A5062365263","display_name":"Fengli Xu","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5720-4026"},"institutions":[],"countries":[],"is_corresponding":false,"raw_author_name":"Fengli Xu","raw_affiliation_strings":[],"raw_orcid":null,"affiliations":[]},{"author_position":"last","author":{"id":"https://openalex.org/A5100355277","display_name":"Yong Li","orcid":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5617-1659"},"institutions":[],"countries":[],"is_corresponding":false,"raw_author_name":"Yong Li","raw_affiliation_strings":[],"raw_orcid":null,"affiliations":[]}],"institutions":[],"countries_distinct_count":0,"institutions_distinct_count":0,"corresponding_author_ids":[],"corresponding_institution_ids":[],"apc_list":null,"apc_paid":null,"fwci":0.0,"has_fulltext":true,"cited_by_count":0,"citation_normalized_percentile":{"value":0.01734227,"is_in_top_1_percent":false,"is_in_top_10_percent":false},"cited_by_percentile_year":null,"biblio":{"volume":null,"issue":null,"first_page":"26739","last_page":"26757"},"is_retracted":false,"is_paratext":false,"is_xpac":false,"primary_topic":{"id":"https://openalex.org/T10028","display_name":"Topic Modeling","score":0.4490000009536743,"subfield":{"id":"https://openalex.org/subfields/1702","display_name":"Artificial Intelligence"},"field":{"id":"https://openalex.org/fields/17","display_name":"Computer Science"},"domain":{"id":"https://openalex.org/domains/3","display_name":"Physical Sciences"}},"topics":[{"id":"https://openalex.org/T10028","display_name":"Topic Modeling","score":0.4490000009536743,"subfield":{"id":"https://openalex.org/subfields/1702","display_name":"Artificial Intelligence"},"field":{"id":"https://openalex.org/fields/17","display_name":"Computer Science"},"domain":{"id":"https://openalex.org/domains/3","display_name":"Physical Sciences"}},{"id":"https://openalex.org/T11714","display_name":"Multimodal Machine Learning Applications","score":0.05889999866485596,"subfield":{"id":"https://openalex.org/subfields/1707","display_name":"Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition"},"field":{"id":"https://openalex.org/fields/17","display_name":"Computer Science"},"domain":{"id":"https://openalex.org/domains/3","display_name":"Physical Sciences"}},{"id":"https://openalex.org/T11636","display_name":"Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education","score":0.03200000151991844,"subfield":{"id":"https://openalex.org/subfields/2718","display_name":"Health Informatics"},"field":{"id":"https://openalex.org/fields/27","display_name":"Medicine"},"domain":{"id":"https://openalex.org/domains/4","display_name":"Health Sciences"}}],"keywords":[{"id":"https://openalex.org/keywords/leverage","display_name":"Leverage (statistics)","score":0.710099995136261},{"id":"https://openalex.org/keywords/language-model","display_name":"Language model","score":0.5088000297546387},{"id":"https://openalex.org/keywords/scaling","display_name":"Scaling","score":0.46389999985694885},{"id":"https://openalex.org/keywords/automated-reasoning","display_name":"Automated reasoning","score":0.4442000091075897},{"id":"https://openalex.org/keywords/computational-model","display_name":"Computational model","score":0.4101000130176544},{"id":"https://openalex.org/keywords/autoregressive-model","display_name":"Autoregressive model","score":0.36320000886917114},{"id":"https://openalex.org/keywords/cognition","display_name":"Cognition","score":0.3499999940395355}],"concepts":[{"id":"https://openalex.org/C153083717","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6535263","display_name":"Leverage (statistics)","level":2,"score":0.710099995136261},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C41008148","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q21198","display_name":"Computer science","level":0,"score":0.6751999855041504},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C137293760","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3621696","display_name":"Language model","level":2,"score":0.5088000297546387},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C99844830","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q102441924","display_name":"Scaling","level":2,"score":0.46389999985694885},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C154945302","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11660","display_name":"Artificial intelligence","level":1,"score":0.45210000872612},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C195344581","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2555318","display_name":"Automated reasoning","level":2,"score":0.4442000091075897},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C66024118","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1122506","display_name":"Computational model","level":2,"score":0.4101000130176544},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C159877910","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2202883","display_name":"Autoregressive model","level":2,"score":0.36320000886917114},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C188147891","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q147638","display_name":"Cognitive science","level":1,"score":0.3621000051498413},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C169900460","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2200417","display_name":"Cognition","level":2,"score":0.3499999940395355},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C80444323","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2878974","display_name":"Theoretical computer science","level":1,"score":0.34150001406669617},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C119857082","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2539","display_name":"Machine learning","level":1,"score":0.33559998869895935},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C2777508537","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7936620","display_name":"Visual reasoning","level":2,"score":0.3244999945163727},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C2779960059","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7113681","display_name":"Overhead (engineering)","level":2,"score":0.32409998774528503},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C183521366","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7256422","display_name":"Psychology of reasoning","level":4,"score":0.32019999623298645},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C45374587","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q12525525","display_name":"Computation","level":2,"score":0.2989000082015991},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C2776760102","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5139990","display_name":"Code (set theory)","level":3,"score":0.2964000105857849},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C2776459999","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2119376","display_name":"Fidelity","level":2,"score":0.2854999899864197},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C103057564","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4751139","display_name":"Analytic reasoning","level":3,"score":0.2741999924182892},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C539667460","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2414942","display_name":"Management science","level":1,"score":0.2734000086784363},{"id":"https://openalex.org/C204321447","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30642","display_name":"Natural language processing","level":1,"score":0.2597000002861023}],"mesh":[],"locations_count":3,"locations":[{"id":"doi:10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.1231","is_oa":true,"landing_page_url":"https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.1231","pdf_url":"https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.1231.pdf","source":null,"license":"cc-by","license_id":"https://openalex.org/licenses/cc-by","version":"publishedVersion","is_accepted":true,"is_published":true,"raw_source_name":"Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)","raw_type":"proceedings-article"},{"id":"pmh:oai:arXiv.org:2510.27469","is_oa":true,"landing_page_url":"http://arxiv.org/abs/2510.27469","pdf_url":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.27469","source":{"id":"https://openalex.org/S4306400194","display_name":"arXiv (Cornell University)","issn_l":"2331-8422","issn":["2331-8422"],"is_oa":true,"is_in_doaj":false,"is_core":false,"host_organization":"https://openalex.org/I205783295","host_organization_name":"Cornell University","host_organization_lineage":["https://openalex.org/I205783295"],"host_organization_lineage_names":[],"type":"repository"},"license":null,"license_id":null,"version":"submittedVersion","is_accepted":false,"is_published":false,"raw_source_name":null,"raw_type":"text"},{"id":"doi:10.48550/arxiv.2510.27469","is_oa":true,"landing_page_url":"https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2510.27469","pdf_url":null,"source":{"id":"https://openalex.org/S4306400194","display_name":"arXiv (Cornell University)","issn_l":"2331-8422","issn":["2331-8422"],"is_oa":true,"is_in_doaj":false,"is_core":false,"host_organization":"https://openalex.org/I205783295","host_organization_name":"Cornell University","host_organization_lineage":["https://openalex.org/I205783295"],"host_organization_lineage_names":[],"type":"repository"},"license":"cc-by","license_id":"https://openalex.org/licenses/cc-by","version":null,"is_accepted":false,"is_published":null,"raw_source_name":null,"raw_type":"Preprint"}],"best_oa_location":{"id":"doi:10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.1231","is_oa":true,"landing_page_url":"https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/2026.acl-long.1231","pdf_url":"https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.1231.pdf","source":null,"license":"cc-by","license_id":"https://openalex.org/licenses/cc-by","version":"publishedVersion","is_accepted":true,"is_published":true,"raw_source_name":"Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)","raw_type":"proceedings-article"},"sustainable_development_goals":[],"awards":[{"id":"https://openalex.org/G2692924645","display_name":null,"funder_award_id":"62472241","funder_id":"https://openalex.org/F4320321001","funder_display_name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China"},{"id":"https://openalex.org/G3613358890","display_name":null,"funder_award_id":"2024YFC3307605","funder_id":"https://openalex.org/F4320335777","funder_display_name":"National Key Research and Development Program of China"}],"funders":[{"id":"https://openalex.org/F4320321001","display_name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","ror":"https://ror.org/01h0zpd94"},{"id":"https://openalex.org/F4320335777","display_name":"National Key Research and Development Program of China","ror":null}],"has_content":{"grobid_xml":true,"pdf":true},"content_urls":{"pdf":"https://content.openalex.org/works/W4415925049.pdf","grobid_xml":"https://content.openalex.org/works/W4415925049.grobid-xml"},"referenced_works_count":0,"referenced_works":[],"related_works":[],"abstract_inverted_index":{"Large":[0],"language":[1,27],"models":[2,28,101],"(LLMs)":[3],"have":[4],"demonstrated":[5],"strong":[6],"capabilities":[7],"in":[8,117],"complex":[9],"reasoning":[10,15,50,66,125,139,147],"tasks,":[11],"yet":[12],"the":[13,38,92,113,142],"multi-step":[14],"processes":[16],"often":[17],"lead":[18],"to":[19,62,73],"expensive":[20],"computation":[21],"cost.The":[22],"recent":[23],"advance":[24],"of":[25,41,94],"diffusion":[26,100],"(DLMs)":[29],"adopts":[30],"a":[31,48],"parallel,":[32],"non-autoregressive":[33],"generation":[34,55,86],"mechanism,":[35],"which":[36,109],"enables":[37],"efficient":[39,97,146],"production":[40],"multiple":[42],"outputs.In":[43],"this":[44],"paper,":[45],"we":[46,59],"explore":[47],"collaborative":[49],"framework":[51,90,116,130],"that":[52],"combines":[53],"diffusion-based":[54],"with":[56,112],"autoregressive":[57,107],"evaluation.Specifically,":[58],"leverage":[60],"DLMs":[61],"efficiently":[63],"propose":[64],"stepwise":[65],"thoughts,":[67],"and":[68,75,82,102,123],"employ":[69],"LLMs":[70],"as":[71],"evaluators":[72],"assess":[74],"select":[76],"candidates":[77],"based":[78],"on":[79],"their":[80],"plausibility":[81],"correctness.By":[83],"decoupling":[84],"proposal":[85],"from":[87,99,106],"evaluation,":[88],"our":[89,129],"exploits":[91],"strengths":[93],"both":[95],"models:":[96],"exploration":[98],"causally":[103],"grounded":[104],"assessment":[105],"models,":[108],"naturally":[110],"aligns":[111],"divergent-convergent":[114],"thinking":[115],"cognitive":[118],"psychology.Experiments":[119],"across":[120],"various":[121],"mathematical":[122],"logical":[124],"benchmarks":[126],"demonstrate":[127],"that,":[128],"improves":[131],"inference":[132],"efficiency":[133],"while":[134],"maintaining":[135],"competitive":[136],"or":[137],"superior":[138],"accuracy,":[140],"laying":[141],"groundwork":[143],"for":[144],"building":[145],"architectures.Our":[148],"code":[149],"is":[150],"open-source":[151],"at":[152],"https://anonymous.4open.":[153],"science/r/":[154]},"counts_by_year":[],"updated_date":"2026-07-29T14:22:42.915294","created_date":"2025-11-05T00:00:00"}
