The Human Visual System Can Inspire New Interaction Paradigms for LLMs

Diana Robinson; Neil Lawrence

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The Human Visual System Can Inspire New Interaction Paradigms for LLMs

Diana Robinson, Neil Lawrence

, 2025.

Abstract

The dominant metaphor of LLMs-as-minds leads to misleading conceptions of machine agency and is limited in its ability to help both users and developers build the right degree of trust and understanding for outputs from LLMs. It makes it harder to disentangle hallucinations from useful model interactions. This position paper argues that there are fundamental similarities between visual perception and the way LLMs process and present language. These similarities inspire a metaphor for LLMs which could open new avenues for research into interaction paradigms and shared representations. Our visual system metaphor introduces possibilities for addressing these challenges by understanding the information landscape assimilated by LLMs. In this paper we motivate our proposal, introduce the interrelating theories from the fields that inspired this view and discuss research directions that stem from this abstraction.

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BibTeX


@Misc{the-human-visual-system-can-inspire-new-interaction-paradigms-for-llms,
  title = 	 {The Human Visual System Can Inspire New Interaction Paradigms for LLMs},
  author = 	 {Robinson, Diana and Lawrence, Neil},
  year = 	 {2025},
  url = 	 {/publications/the-human-visual-system-can-inspire-new-interaction-paradigms-for-llms.html},
  abstract = 	 {The dominant metaphor of LLMs-as-minds leads to misleading conceptions of machine agency and is limited in its ability to help both users and developers build the right degree of trust and understanding for outputs from LLMs. It makes it harder to disentangle hallucinations from useful model interactions. This position paper argues that there are fundamental similarities between visual perception and the way LLMs process and present language. These similarities inspire a metaphor for LLMs which could open new avenues for research into interaction paradigms and shared representations. Our visual system metaphor introduces possibilities for addressing these challenges by understanding the information landscape assimilated by LLMs. In this paper we motivate our proposal, introduce the interrelating theories from the fields that inspired this view and discuss research directions that stem from this abstraction.
}
}

Endnote

%0 Generic
%T The Human Visual System Can Inspire New Interaction Paradigms for LLMs
%A Diana Robinson
%A Neil Lawrence
%D 2025	
%F the-human-visual-system-can-inspire-new-interaction-paradigms-for-llms
%U /publications/the-human-visual-system-can-inspire-new-interaction-paradigms-for-llms.html
%X The dominant metaphor of LLMs-as-minds leads to misleading conceptions of machine agency and is limited in its ability to help both users and developers build the right degree of trust and understanding for outputs from LLMs. It makes it harder to disentangle hallucinations from useful model interactions. This position paper argues that there are fundamental similarities between visual perception and the way LLMs process and present language. These similarities inspire a metaphor for LLMs which could open new avenues for research into interaction paradigms and shared representations. Our visual system metaphor introduces possibilities for addressing these challenges by understanding the information landscape assimilated by LLMs. In this paper we motivate our proposal, introduce the interrelating theories from the fields that inspired this view and discuss research directions that stem from this abstraction.

RIS


TY  - GEN
TI  - The Human Visual System Can Inspire New Interaction Paradigms for LLMs
AU  - Diana Robinson
AU  - Neil Lawrence
DA  - 2025/04/14	
ID  - the-human-visual-system-can-inspire-new-interaction-paradigms-for-llms
UR  - /publications/the-human-visual-system-can-inspire-new-interaction-paradigms-for-llms.html
AB  - The dominant metaphor of LLMs-as-minds leads to misleading conceptions of machine agency and is limited in its ability to help both users and developers build the right degree of trust and understanding for outputs from LLMs. It makes it harder to disentangle hallucinations from useful model interactions. This position paper argues that there are fundamental similarities between visual perception and the way LLMs process and present language. These similarities inspire a metaphor for LLMs which could open new avenues for research into interaction paradigms and shared representations. Our visual system metaphor introduces possibilities for addressing these challenges by understanding the information landscape assimilated by LLMs. In this paper we motivate our proposal, introduce the interrelating theories from the fields that inspired this view and discuss research directions that stem from this abstraction.

ER  -

APA


Robinson, D. & Lawrence, N.. (2025). The Human Visual System Can Inspire New Interaction Paradigms for LLMs.  Available from /publications/the-human-visual-system-can-inspire-new-interaction-paradigms-for-llms.html.