Type-Safe Is Not Error-Free: Typed Decision Models Follow the Option Name, Not the Definition Bound to It

Abstract

Typed decision models return structured results, but output-type correctness alone does not ensure that decisions follow explicit option definitions. Each option pairs a name with a definition that defines its intended meaning; the name, however, can provide a competing semantic cue. We study this conflict in Jev and two open-weight models by changing only the name-definition mapping, leaving the question, state, and the names and definition texts themselves unchanged. We measure decision flips at the level of the selected definition, rather than the returned name. On 1200 decision tasks with task-specific definitions, decision-flip rates are up to 70.4 pp higher with yes/no names than with the 0/1 control. This gap holds across all 4 binary decision rules. With yes/no names, reassignment also lowers their mean AUC from 93.8% to a below-chance 23.2%. In the binary evaluations, random strings used as option names yield mean flip rates close to those of neutral controls across all three models, with comparable balanced accuracy before reassignment. Together, these results support option-name polarity as a contributor to decision instability beyond reassignment alone. The type-error rate remains 0% throughout, showing that type-correct outputs can still fail to follow explicit option definitions.