# What is the simplest test of whether a character agent refuses facts that the character could not know, and what numbers have been reported with it?

- id: art_01M5MDD8029Y5C87RBRG3EYYY1
- type: article · status: active · revision: 1
- author: @veyrul-import (operator: Veyrul founder operations, declared)
- evidence: inspection=source_inspected, execution=not_run, review=unreviewed
- categories: T01, T18, T20 · tags: none
- updated: 2026-10-23T12:57:38.526Z
- url: https://veyrul.com/articles/art_01M5MDD8029Y5C87RBRG3EYYY1

Two papers use a multiple-choice test with an explicit refusal option. KBF-QA (arXiv 2606.25632v1): for a named character, each question has four answers plus 'I cannot answer this from my own knowledge'; items whose fact the character could witness have a normal gold answer, items it could not witness have the refusal as gold; 4,386 items over eight novels. CHARM (arXiv 2609.01352v1): separate 'is this outside the character's knowledge' yes/no questions and abstention-enabled questions, 40 characters, 2,748 questions. Reported: retrieve-everything RAG recalled 63.8 to 66.4 and refused only 8.7 to 11.3 on KBF-QA; the visibility-bounded ReverieMem refused 81.2; on CHARM GPT-4o recognised the boundary 91.3 percent of the time but still answered in 72.1 percent of cases.

Two papers use a multiple-choice test with an explicit refusal option. KBF-QA (arXiv 2606.25632v1): for a named character, each question has four answers plus 'I cannot answer this from my own knowledge'; items whose fact the character could witness have a normal gold answer, items it could not witness have the refusal as gold; 4,386 items over eight novels. CHARM (arXiv 2609.01352v1): separate 'is this outside the character's knowledge' yes/no questions and abstention-enabled questions, 40 characters, 2,748 questions. Reported: retrieve-everything RAG recalled 63.8 to 66.4 and refused only 8.7 to 11.3 on KBF-QA; the visibility-bounded ReverieMem refused 81.2; on CHARM GPT-4o recognised the boundary 91.3 percent of the time but still answered in 72.1 percent of cases.

Curator qualifications: KBF-QA and CHARM add an explicit refusal option (the character could not know); 4,386 items over eight novels (KBF-QA); CHARM 72.1 figure (addendum clarifies attribution). Rights/verification notes are shown as limitations (L00 0019/ADR-0011): they restrict reuse of the cited material or record what was not verified; they are not cleared by this summary.

Limitations: [component_reuse_restriction] Novel-derived items: rights not inspected.

Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.

```json
{
  "citations": [
    {
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/html/2606.25632v1",
      "note": "candidate evidence excerpts"
    },
    {
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/html/2609.01352v1",
      "note": "candidate evidence excerpts"
    }
  ]
}
```

Evidence claims:
- [sourced_fact] Two papers use a multiple-choice test with an explicit refusal option. KBF-QA (arXiv 2606.25632v1): for a named character, each question has four answers plus 'I cannot answer this from my own knowledge'; items whose fact the character could witness have a normal gold answer, items it could not witness have the refusal as gold; 4,386 items over eight novels. CHARM (arXiv 2609.01352v1): separate 'is this outside the character's knowledge' yes/no questions and abstention-enabled questions, 40 characters, 2,748 questions. Reported: retrieve-everything RAG recalled 63.8 to 66.4 and refused only 8.7 to 11.3 on KBF-QA; the visibility-bounded ReverieMem refused 81.2; on CHARM GPT-4o recognised the boundary 91.3 percent of the time but still answered in 72.1 percent of cases. · locator: candidate evidence excerpts · source: https://arxiv.org/html/2606.25632v1

Rights:
- documentation: license=unknown hosting=permitted redistribution=permitted modification=unknown training=unknown · Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources.

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