Yirui QI
2026
Beyond Static Persona Consistency: Dynamic Persona Coherence in LLM Role-Playing
Yirui QI | Xiaoming Zhang | Ruilin Zeng | Mengyao Liu | Ziyi Zhou | Dezhuang Miao | Bingyu Yan | Zhenyu Guan
Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)
Yirui QI | Xiaoming Zhang | Ruilin Zeng | Mengyao Liu | Ziyi Zhou | Dezhuang Miao | Bingyu Yan | Zhenyu Guan
Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)
Current LLM role-playing systems model persona as a monolithic, static attribute, conflating identity consistency with emotional rigidity. This leads to either robotic repetition or catastrophic persona drift under sustained interaction. We introduce Dynamic Persona Coherence, a framework that decouples Identity-Layer Stability (time-invariant traits) from Adaptive-Layer Appropriateness (history-dependent psychological evolution). We operationalize this through the L/M/S Psychological State Model, which represents persona dynamics across long-term identity, mid-term meaning/stress accumulation, and short-term affect. On top of this state representation, a closed-loop alignment system comprising an automated evaluator (Persona Consistency Critic, PCC), a selective repository (Persona Case Repository, PCR), and a trajectory-adjusting corrector (Persona Drift Suppressor, PDS) enables autonomous coherence repair. Experiments on GPT-4o, Claude-3.5-Sonnet, and DeepSeek-V3.2 demonstrate consistent improvements (+16–84% PCC gains).