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arXiv · 2606.29067

ThinkProbe: Beyond Accuracy -- Structural Profiling of Open-Ended LLM Reasoning Traces via Non-Generative Thought Graphs

Mohamed Amine Kerkouri·Simon D. Hernandez·Marouane Tliba·Yann Dauxais·Maha Ben-Fares·Pierre Holat
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Abstract

We present ThinkProbe, a framework for structural analysis of LLM reasoning traces. ThinkProbe converts each trace into a Thought Graph a directed graph with cycles, 8 node types, and 6 edge types and derives a 19-metric five-dimensional cognitive profile (5D-CP: Breadth, Depth, Structure, Metacognitive, Efficiency) through a fully non-generative pipeline combining rule-based segmentation and discriminative semantic linking. Applied to 4{,}200 traces from 7 native reasoning models across 200 open-ended questions and 10 cognitive domains, ThinkProbe reveals that reasoning structure is a stable, model-level property: between-model variance exceeds between-domain variance by up to fourfold across four of five cognitive dimensions, with Structure showing genuine sensitivity to question domain, exposing qualitatively distinct cognitive profiles invisible to accuracy-based evaluation.

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Mohamed Amine Kerkouri, Simon D. Hernandez, Marouane Tliba, Yann Dauxais, Maha Ben-Fares, Pierre Holat. 2026-06-27. ThinkProbe: Beyond Accuracy -- Structural Profiling of Open-Ended LLM Reasoning Traces via Non-Generative Thought Graphs. https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.29067

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