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arXiv · 2509.20553

Perspectra: Choosing Your Experts Enhances Critical Thinking in Multi-Agent Research Ideation

Yiren Liu·Viraj Shah·Sangho Suh·Pao Siangliulue·Tal August·Yun Huang
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Abstract

Recent advances in multi-agent systems (MAS) enable tools for information search and ideation by assigning personas to agents. However, how users can effectively control, steer, and critically evaluate collaboration among multiple domain-expert agents remains underexplored. We present Perspectra, an interactive MAS that visualizes and structures deliberation among LLM agents via a forum-style interface, supporting @-mention to invite targeted agents, threading for parallel exploration, with a real-time mind map for visualizing arguments and rationales. In a within-subjects study with 18 participants, we compared Perspectra to a group-chat baseline as they developed research proposals. Our findings show that Perspectra significantly increased the frequency and depth of critical-thinking behaviors, elicited more interdisciplinary replies, and led to more frequent proposal revisions than the group chat condition. We discuss implications for designing multi-agent tools that scaffold critical thinking by supporting user control over multi-agent adversarial discourse.

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Yiren Liu, Viraj Shah, Sangho Suh, Pao Siangliulue, Tal August, Yun Huang. 2025-09-24. Perspectra: Choosing Your Experts Enhances Critical Thinking in Multi-Agent Research Ideation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.20553

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