Understanding and attributing mental states, known as Theory of Mind (ToM), emerges as a fundamental capability for human social reasoning. While Large Language Models (LLMs) appear to possess certain ToM abilities, the mechanisms underlying these capabilities remain elusive. In this study, we discover that it is possible to linearly decode the belief status from the perspectives of various agents through neural activations of language models, indicating the existence of internal representations of self and others' beliefs. By manipulating these representations, we observe dramatic changes in the models' ToM performance, underscoring their pivotal role in the social reasoning process. Additionally, our findings extend to diverse social reasoning tasks that involve different causal inference patterns, suggesting the potential generalizability of these representations.

Like Beyoncé, we now know, Hillary Clinton has hot sauce in her bag. She said so on New York's Power 105.1, so it must be true. Still, Donald Trump doesn't believe her, nor do Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham nor many of Fox News' talking heads. Even Power 105.1 host Charlamagne Tha God kind of accused her of pandering. I think she just likes hot sauce -- and not just because she's on record as a chilehead in interviews going back at least to 2008.