AI RESEARCH

How Prompts Move Language Model Behavior: Frames, Salience, and Construal as Semantic Control

arXiv CS.LG

ArXi:2512.12688v3 Announce Type: replace Prompt engineering is widely used to shape large language model behavior, yet it is often treated as a practical heuristic rather than as a form of natural-language control. This paper develops a cognitive-semantic account in which prompts function as semantic conditions on how a fixed model interprets inputs, foregrounds information, and structures tasks.