The Core-Modulation Architecture (CMA): A Structural Overview of Hallucination as Structural Mismatch

Authors

• Griselda Poe, CUNY Lehman CollegeFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Spring 4-10-2026

Abstract

Hallucination is defined not as factual error but as a structural failure of alignment across target, layer, and constraint.

Within the Core-Modulation Architecture (CMA), cognition proceeds through layered processing and requires layer-specific termination conditions. Hallucination arises when Modulation-level termination is registered as completion while Core-level resolution has not occurred, producing structurally ungrounded but locally coherent outputs.

Detection is therefore structural rather than content-based, focusing on layer mismatch and termination failure.

This document presents a minimal structural account of hallucination within the CMA framework.

Comments

https://zenodo.org/records/19502101

Core-Modulation Architecture (CMA)