# A foundation model to predict and capture human cognition

*Source* · `src-binz-2025-centaur` · status: **n/a**

| field | value |
|---|---|
| kind | Peer-reviewed paper |
| authors | Marcel Binz, Elif Akata, Matthias Bethge, et al., Eric Schulz |
| venue | Nature 644, 1002-1009 |
| date | 2025-07-02 |
| url | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09215-4 |
| doi | 10.1038/s41586-025-09215-4 |
| accessed | 2026-10-24 |

## Notes

Centaur: Llama 3.1 70B, frozen 4-bit base, rank-8 QLoRA adapters (about 0.15% of parameters), one epoch, about five days on one A100 80GB. Psych-101: 160 experiments, 60,092 participants, 10,681,650 choices. Beats 14 cognitive models on held-out participants; generalizes to new cover stories, structures, domains. Limits: WEIRD bias, mostly learning and decision tasks, 8B Minitaur weaker out of distribution.

## Backlinks (computed)

**cited by:** [LLM models of individual human choice](../technique/human-behavior-simulation-models.md)

## Citation

Marcel Binz, Elif Akata, Matthias Bethge, et al., Eric Schulz (2025-07-02). *A foundation model to predict and capture human cognition*. Nature 644, 1002-1009 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09215-4

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Provenance: created in run `2026-10-24-techniques-llm-agents`.