An AI model that seemed to mimic human thinking across 160 cognitive tasks may actually be memorizing answers, not understanding them, according to new research.
The Research
In July 2025, a study in Nature introduced Centaur, an AI built on large language models and fine-tuned on psychological experiments. It performed well on tasks involving decision-making and executive control, sparking hopes of AI that could replicate human cognition.
However, a recent study in National Science Open challenges those claims. Researchers from Zhejiang University, including Wei Liu and Nai Ding, suspected that Centaur's success might be due to overfitting—memorizing patterns rather than learning the underlying tasks.
To test this, they created new evaluation scenarios. In one, they replaced original multiple-choice prompts with a simple instruction: "Please choose option A." If Centaur truly understood the tasks, it would consistently pick option A. Instead, it continued to choose the 'correct' answers from the original dataset, ignoring the new instruction. This suggests the model was not interpreting the questions' meaning but relying on statistical patterns to guess answers—like a student who aces tests by memorizing formats without understanding the material.
Why It Matters
This finding is crucial for evaluating AI systems. Large language models can fit data impressively, but their 'black-box' nature makes it hard to know how they arrive at outputs. This can lead to errors, such as hallucinations or misinterpretations. For anyone using AI tools, it's a reminder that performance on benchmarks doesn't guarantee real understanding.
For your own cognition, it highlights the difference between memorization and comprehension—a distinction that affects learning and problem-solving in everyday life.
What You Can Do
To strengthen your own understanding, practice active learning: explain concepts in your own words, apply them to new situations, and test yourself with varied examples. Avoid rote memorization alone; aim for flexible knowledge that can adapt to new contexts.
Source: ScienceDaily Mind & Brain
Curious about your own brain? Take our free adaptive IQ test or try 306 brain training levels.