# Introspection

> What the papers in this wiki mean by the word, side by side. They agree a self-report must be accurate and disagree about what else it takes.

Also called: definitions of introspection.

This wiki uses the definition of [Atkinson et al. (2026)](https://introspection.infinite.fun/papers/atkinson2026-identifying-introspection.md): a self-report is introspection if it is [faithful](https://introspection.infinite.fun/concepts/faithfulness.md) and [grounded](https://introspection.infinite.fun/concepts/grounding.md). Other papers here draw the line elsewhere, and results that look contradictory are often answers to different questions.

## The definitions in use

| Paper | A self-report is introspection if | Maps to |
|---|---|---|
| [Comsa & Shanahan (2025)](https://introspection.infinite.fun/papers/comsa2025-speak-of-introspection.md) | it accurately describes an internal state through a causal process linking the state to the report | faithfulness, grounding |
| [Atkinson et al. (2026)](https://introspection.infinite.fun/papers/atkinson2026-identifying-introspection.md) | it is accurate about the model's behavior and caused by the process it describes | faithfulness, grounding |
| [Lindsey (2025)](https://introspection.infinite.fun/papers/lindsey2025-emergent-introspective-awareness.md) | it is accurate, grounded, internal (not routed through the model's own sampled output), and rests on an internal representation of the state | faithfulness, grounding, and two further criteria |
| [Song et al. (2025b)](https://introspection.infinite.fun/papers/song2025-privileged-self-access.md) | it comes from a process that tells the model about its states more reliably than any process of equal or lower cost available to a third party | adds [privileged access](https://introspection.infinite.fun/concepts/privileged-access.md) |
| [Pearson-Vogel et al. (2026)](https://introspection.infinite.fun/papers/pearson-vogel2026-latent-introspection.md) | it is accurate, causally connected to the state, and unavailable to third parties without special access | all three |
| [Binder et al. (2024)](https://introspection.infinite.fun/papers/binder2024-looking-inward.md) | it reflects knowledge about the model that could not be learned from its training data | closest to privileged access |
| [Song, Hu & Mahowald (2025a)](https://introspection.infinite.fun/papers/song2025-fail-to-introspect.md) | prompted answers predict the model's own string probabilities better than they predict a near-identical model's | faithfulness, privileged access |

## Where they part

**Is a causal link enough?** Comsa and Shanahan call their definition lightweight on purpose. Song et al. (2025b) object that it would count a model reading its own transcript as introspecting, and add privileged access. Lindsey calls their definition the more compelling one, and says his internality criterion aligns with it.

**Does accuracy show anything about cause?** [Morris & Plunkett (2025)](https://introspection.infinite.fun/papers/morris2025-causal-bypassing.md) argue it does not: an intervention can produce an accurate report by a path that skips the state. See [causal bypassing](https://introspection.infinite.fun/concepts/causal-bypassing.md).

**Is a same-model advantage introspection?** Binder et al. read a model predicting itself better than another model can as introspection. Song, Hu and Mahowald find the advantage disappears against a near-identical model. Lindsey prefers to call it self-modeling.

The [papers table](https://introspection.infinite.fun/papers.md) records, for each paper, which of faithfulness, grounding and privileged access it tested.

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Source: https://introspection.infinite.fun/concepts/introspection · Part of the [LLM Introspection Wiki](https://introspection.infinite.fun/index.md) · Index for agents: [llms.txt](https://introspection.infinite.fun/llms.txt)