publications

2026

1. ICML

   τ-Knowledge: Evaluating Conversational Agents over Unstructured Knowledge

   Quan Shi, Alexandra Zytek, Pedram Razavi, and 2 more authors

   arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.04370, 2026

   Accepted at ICML 2026.

   arXiv Bib HTML Code

   @article{shi2026tauknowledge,
     title = {τ-Knowledge: Evaluating Conversational Agents over Unstructured Knowledge},
     author = {Shi, Quan and Zytek, Alexandra and Razavi, Pedram and Narasimhan, Karthik and Barres, Victor},
     journal = {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.04370},
     note = {Accepted at ICML 2026.},
     year = {2026},
     url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.04370},
     keywords = {ai-agents}
   }

2. ICML

   τ-Voice: Benchmarking Full-Duplex Voice Agents on Real-World Domains

   Victor Barres^*, Soham Ray^*, Keshav Dhandhania^*, and 1 more author

   2026

   Accepted at ICML 2026.

   arXiv Bib HTML Code

   @misc{ray2026tauvoice,
     title = {τ-Voice: Benchmarking Full-Duplex Voice Agents on Real-World Domains},
     author = {Barres, Victor and Ray, Soham and Dhandhania, Keshav and Narasimhan, Karthik},
     note = {Accepted at ICML 2026.},
     year = {2026},
     archiveprefix = {arXiv},
     primaryclass = {cs.SD},
     url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.13686},
     keywords = {ai-agents}
   }

2025

1. ICML

   τ²-Bench: Evaluating Conversational Agents in a Dual-Control Environment

   Victor Barres^*, Honghua Dong^*, Soham Ray, and 2 more authors

   2025

   Spotlight at ICML 2026.

   Abs arXiv Bib HTML Code

   We introduce τ²-bench, a benchmark for evaluating conversational agents in a dual-control environment, where both the agent and the user can take actions on the world. τ²-bench extends τ-bench’s tool-agent-user interaction setting and supports rigorous evaluation of agents that must coordinate with users in real-world customer-service scenarios.

   @misc{barres2025tau2,
     title = {τ²-Bench: Evaluating Conversational Agents in a Dual-Control Environment},
     author = {Barres, Victor and Dong, Honghua and Ray, Soham and Si, Xujie and Narasimhan, Karthik},
     note = {Spotlight at ICML 2026.},
     year = {2025},
     archiveprefix = {arXiv},
     primaryclass = {cs.AI},
     url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.07982},
     keywords = {ai-agents}
   }

2. NAACL

   From Generating Answers to Building Explanations: Integrating Multi-Round RAG and Causal Modeling for Scientific QA

   Victor Barres^*, Clifton James McFate^*, Aditya Kalyanpur, and 4 more authors

   In Proceedings of the 2025 Conference of the Nations of the Americas Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies (Industry Track), 2025

   Bib HTML Slides

   @inproceedings{barres2025explanations,
     title = {From Generating Answers to Building Explanations: Integrating Multi-Round {RAG} and Causal Modeling for Scientific {QA}},
     author = {Barres, Victor and McFate, Clifton James and Kalyanpur, Aditya and Saravanakumar, Kailash Karthik and Moon, Lori and Seifu, Natnael and Bautista-Castillo, Abraham},
     booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2025 Conference of the Nations of the Americas Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies (Industry Track)},
     year = {2025},
     url = {https://aclanthology.org/2025.naacl-industry.42/},
     keywords = {ai-agents}
   }

2024

1. arXiv

   LLM-ARC: Enhancing LLMs with an Automated Reasoning Critic

   Aditya Kalyanpur, Kailash Karthik Saravanakumar, Victor Barres, and 3 more authors

   2024

   Abs arXiv Bib HTML

   We introduce LLM-ARC, a neuro-symbolic framework designed to enhance the logical reasoning capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs), by combining them with an Automated Reasoning Critic (ARC). LLM-ARC employs an Actor-Critic method where the LLM Actor generates declarative logic programs along with tests for semantic correctness, while the Automated Reasoning Critic evaluates the code, runs the tests and provides feedback on test failures for iterative refinement.

   @misc{kalyanpur2024llmarc,
     title = {{LLM-ARC}: Enhancing {LLMs} with an Automated Reasoning Critic},
     author = {Kalyanpur, Aditya and Saravanakumar, Kailash Karthik and Barres, Victor and Chu-Carroll, Jennifer and Melville, David and Ferrucci, David},
     year = {2024},
     archiveprefix = {arXiv},
     primaryclass = {cs.AI},
     url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.17663},
     keywords = {ai-agents}
   }

2. arXiv

   Multi-step Inference over Unstructured Data

   Aditya Kalyanpur, Kailash Karthik Saravanakumar, Victor Barres, and 8 more authors

   2024

   arXiv Bib HTML

   @misc{kalyanpur2024multistep,
     title = {Multi-step Inference over Unstructured Data},
     author = {Kalyanpur, Aditya and Saravanakumar, Kailash Karthik and Barres, Victor and McFate, Clifton James and Moon, Lori and Seifu, Natnael and Eremeev, Maksim and Barrera, Jose and Bautista-Castillo, Abraham and Brown, Eric and Ferrucci, David},
     year = {2024},
     archiveprefix = {arXiv},
     primaryclass = {cs.AI},
     url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.17987},
     keywords = {ai-agents}
   }

2023

1. IJCNLP

   Controllable Discovery of Intents: Incremental Deep Clustering Using Semi-Supervised Contrastive Learning

   Mrinal Rawat, Hithesh Sankararaman, and Victor Barres

   In Proceedings of the 13th International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing and the 3rd Conference of the Asia-Pacific Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers), 2023

   DOI Bib HTML

   @inproceedings{rawat2023controllable,
     title = {Controllable Discovery of Intents: Incremental Deep Clustering Using Semi-Supervised Contrastive Learning},
     author = {Rawat, Mrinal and Sankararaman, Hithesh and Barres, Victor},
     booktitle = {Proceedings of the 13th International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing and the 3rd Conference of the Asia-Pacific Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)},
     pages = {793--803},
     year = {2023},
     doi = {10.18653/v1/2023.ijcnlp-main.51},
     url = {https://aclanthology.org/2023.ijcnlp-main.51/},
     keywords = {ai-agents}
   }

2022

1. arXiv

   Real-time Caller Intent Detection In Human-Human Customer Support Spoken Conversations

   Mrinal Rawat and Victor Barres

   2022

   arXiv Bib HTML

   @misc{rawat2022callerintent,
     title = {Real-time Caller Intent Detection In Human-Human Customer Support Spoken Conversations},
     author = {Rawat, Mrinal and Barres, Victor},
     year = {2022},
     archiveprefix = {arXiv},
     primaryclass = {cs.CL},
     url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.06802},
     keywords = {ai-agents}
   }

2017

1. AAAI-SS

   Can We Already Conceive of a Computational Construction Grammar that is Adequate to Address the Data of Neurolinguistics?

   Michael A. Arbib, Nancy Chang, Peter Ford Dominey, and 2 more authors

   In AAAI Spring Symposium on Computational Construction Grammar and Natural Language Understanding, 2017

   Bib HTML

   @inproceedings{arbib2017computational,
     title = {Can We Already Conceive of a Computational Construction Grammar that is Adequate to Address the Data of Neurolinguistics?},
     author = {Arbib, Michael A. and Chang, Nancy and Dominey, Peter Ford and Barres, Victor and Spranger, Michael},
     booktitle = {AAAI Spring Symposium on Computational Construction Grammar and Natural Language Understanding},
     year = {2017},
     url = {https://aaai.org/proceeding/02-spring-2017/},
     keywords = {cogsci}
   }

2. AAAI-SS

   Template Construction Grammar: A Schema-Theoretic Computational Construction Grammar

   Victor J. Barres

   In AAAI Spring Symposium on Computational Construction Grammar and Natural Language Understanding, 2017

   Bib HTML

   @inproceedings{barres2017tcg,
     title = {Template Construction Grammar: A Schema-Theoretic Computational Construction Grammar},
     author = {Barres, Victor J.},
     booktitle = {AAAI Spring Symposium on Computational Construction Grammar and Natural Language Understanding},
     year = {2017},
     url = {https://aaai.org/proceeding/02-spring-2017/},
     keywords = {cogsci}
   }

2014

1. Front. Hum. Neurosci.

   Hearing (rivaling) lips and seeing voices: how audiovisual interactions modulate perceptual stabilization in binocular rivalry

   Manuel Vidal and Victor Barres

   Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2014

   DOI Bib HTML

   @article{vidal2014hearing,
     title = {Hearing (rivaling) lips and seeing voices: how audiovisual interactions modulate perceptual stabilization in binocular rivalry},
     author = {Vidal, Manuel and Barres, Victor},
     journal = {Frontiers in Human Neuroscience},
     volume = {8},
     pages = {677},
     year = {2014},
     doi = {10.3389/fnhum.2014.00677},
     url = {https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00677},
     keywords = {cogsci}
   }

2. Neuropsychologia

   Language is handy but is it embodied?

   Michael A. Arbib, Brad Gasser, and Victor Barres

   Neuropsychologia, 2014

   DOI Bib HTML

   @article{arbib2014language,
     title = {Language is handy but is it embodied?},
     author = {Arbib, Michael A. and Gasser, Brad and Barres, Victor},
     journal = {Neuropsychologia},
     volume = {55},
     pages = {57--70},
     year = {2014},
     doi = {10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.11.004},
     url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2013.11.004},
     keywords = {cogsci}
   }

3. Neuroinformatics

   Template Construction Grammar: From Visual Scene Description to Language Comprehension and Agrammatism

   Victor Barres and Jinyong Lee

   Neuroinformatics, 2014

   DOI Bib HTML

   @article{barres2014tcg,
     title = {Template Construction Grammar: From Visual Scene Description to Language Comprehension and Agrammatism},
     author = {Barres, Victor and Lee, Jinyong},
     journal = {Neuroinformatics},
     volume = {12},
     number = {1},
     pages = {181--208},
     year = {2014},
     doi = {10.1007/s12021-013-9197-y},
     url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s12021-013-9197-y},
     keywords = {cogsci}
   }

2013

1. Neural Networks

   Synthetic event-related potentials: A computational bridge between neurolinguistic models and experiments

   Victor Barres, Arthur Simons, and Michael A. Arbib

   Neural Networks, 2013

   DOI Bib HTML Code

   @article{barres2013synthetic,
     title = {Synthetic event-related potentials: A computational bridge between neurolinguistic models and experiments},
     author = {Barres, Victor and Simons, Arthur and Arbib, Michael A.},
     journal = {Neural Networks},
     volume = {37},
     pages = {66--92},
     year = {2013},
     doi = {10.1016/j.neunet.2012.09.021},
     url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neunet.2012.09.021},
     keywords = {cogsci}
   }

2012

1. Perception

   Hearing lips and (not) seeing voices: Audiovisual integration with the suppressed percept

   Manuel Vidal and Victor Barres

   Perception, 2012

   Bib

   @article{vidal2012hearing,
     title = {Hearing lips and (not) seeing voices: Audiovisual integration with the suppressed percept},
     author = {Vidal, Manuel and Barres, Victor},
     journal = {Perception},
     volume = {41},
     pages = {212},
     year = {2012},
     keywords = {cogsci}
   }

2011

1. i-Perception

   How Auditory Information Influences Volitional Control in Binocular Rivalry: Modulation of a Top-Down Attentional Effect

   Manuel Vidal and Victor Barres

   i-Perception, 2011

   Bib

   @article{vidal2011auditory,
     title = {How Auditory Information Influences Volitional Control in Binocular Rivalry: Modulation of a Top-Down Attentional Effect},
     author = {Vidal, Manuel and Barres, Victor},
     journal = {i-Perception},
     volume = {2},
     number = {8},
     pages = {839},
     year = {2011},
     keywords = {cogsci}
   }