Scientific reasoning relies not only on logical inference but also on activating prior knowledge and experiential structures. Memory can efficiently reuse knowledge and enhance reasoning consistency and stability. However, existing benchmarks mainly evaluate final answers or step-by-step coherence, overlooking the memory-driven mechanisms that underlie human reasoning, which involves activating anchors and attractors, then integrating them into multi-step inference.
To address this gap, we propose A3-Bench, a benchmark to evaluate scientific reasoning through dual-scale memory-driven activation, grounded in Anchor and Attractor Activation.
First, we annotate 2,198 science reasoning problems across domains using the SAPM process (subject, anchor & attractor, problem, and memory developing). Second, we introduce a dual-scale memory evaluation framework utilizing anchors and attractors, along with the AAUI (Anchor--Attractor Utilization Index) metric to measure memory activation rates. Finally, through experiments with various base models and paradigms, we validate A3-Bench and analyze how memory activation impacts reasoning performance, providing insights into memory-driven scientific reasoning.
A3-Bench Dataset
@misc{zhang2026a3benchbenchmarkingmemorydrivenscientific,
title={$A^3$-Bench: Benchmarking Memory-Driven Scientific Reasoning via Anchor and Attractor Activation},
author={Jian Zhang and Yu He and Zhiyuan Wang and Zhangqi Wang and Kai He and Fangzhi Xu and Qika Lin and Jun Liu},
year={2026},
eprint={2601.09274},
archivePrefix={arXiv},
primaryClass={cs.AI},
url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.09274},
}