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Can Vision Language Models Learn from Visual Demonstrations of Ambiguous Spatial Reasoning? (2409.17080v1)

Published 25 Sep 2024 in cs.CV and cs.CL

Abstract: Large vision-LLMs (VLMs) have become state-of-the-art for many computer vision tasks, with in-context learning (ICL) as a popular adaptation strategy for new ones. But can VLMs learn novel concepts purely from visual demonstrations, or are they limited to adapting to the output format of ICL examples? We propose a new benchmark we call Spatial Visual Ambiguity Tasks (SVAT) that challenges state-of-the-art VLMs to learn new visuospatial tasks in-context. We find that VLMs fail to do this zero-shot, and sometimes continue to fail after finetuning. However, adding simpler data to the training by curriculum learning leads to improved ICL performance.

Summary

  • The paper introduces the SVAT benchmark to assess VLMs’ ability to interpret ambiguous spatial relations purely through visual demonstrations.
  • It demonstrates that direct finetuning notably improves performance, with MiniCPM-V-2.6 achieving a 66.6% accuracy on complex tasks.
  • Curriculum learning further boosts accuracy, offering relative gains between 14.2% and 34.2% compared to standard finetuning.

An Essay on "Can Vision LLMs Learn from Visual Demonstrations of Ambiguous Spatial Reasoning?"

Introduction

This essay provides an analytical summary of the paper titled "Can Vision LLMs Learn from Visual Demonstrations of Ambiguous Spatial Reasoning?" authored by Bowen Zhao, Leo Parker Dirac, and Paulina Varshavskaya. The paper investigates the capabilities and limitations of large vision-LLMs (VLMs) when confronted with ambiguous spatial reasoning tasks that require learning predominantly from visual demonstrations rather than explicit textual context.

Main Contributions

The primary contribution of this paper is the introduction of a novel benchmark, Spatial Visual Ambiguity Tasks (SVAT), designed to evaluate the ability of state-of-the-art VLMs to understand and process ambiguous visuospatial concepts purely from in-context visual demonstrations. The benchmark integrates tasks with varying degrees of complexity, testing models’ abilities to interpret spatial relations and make decisions based on a mixture of simple and complex visual inputs.

In addition, the authors explore various training strategies, including zero-shot, direct finetuning and curriculum learning (CL), to enhance the performance of VLMs on these tasks. The results and methodologies presented pave the way for understanding how VLMs can adapt to new tasks specifically requiring spatial reasoning capabilities.

Key Findings

  • Zero-Shot Performance: The evaluation of several VLMs, including LLaVA-Next, VILA-1.5-8B, Idefics2, InternVL2, and MiniCPM-V-2.6, indicates that most models struggle with SVAT tasks in a zero-shot setting. Specifically, their performance is often comparable to or worse than random guessing, especially in the absence of textual aid, highlighting a significant limitation in current VLMs.
  • Direct Finetuning: Results demonstrate an improved performance of VLMs on SVAT tasks post finetuning. MiniCPM-V-2.6 shows the highest improvement, achieving an average accuracy of 66.6% across multiple categories. This emphasizes the role of task-specific training in enhancing model performance on complex visuospatial reasoning tasks.
  • Curriculum Learning (CL): The introduction of curriculum learning proved effective. By progressively training VLMs from simpler to more complex tasks, the authors observed a marked improvement in accuracy. Notably, MiniCPM-V-2.6 achieved relative accuracy gains ranging from 14.2% to 34.2% compared to straightforward finetuning.

Experimental Setup and Results

The authors meticulously designed their experiments to showcase the capabilities and shortcomings of current VLMs. Key elements include:

  • Task Families: Classification tasks with varying complexity of background images and object categories were used. This allowed for a comprehensive analysis of VLM performance across different levels of difficulty.
  • Evaluation Metrics: The models' performance is measured using exact-match accuracy, with statistical significance (p < 0.05) to evaluate their improvement over random guessing.
  • Model Selection: The paper spans multiple VLMs with parameter counts around 7-8 billion for comparison fairness and efficiency. Notably, MiniCPM-V-2.6 exhibited the best performance in zero-shot settings, outperforming others without requiring textual prompts.

Implications and Future Directions

The findings from this paper have substantial implications for both the practical application and theoretical understanding of VLMs:

  • Practical Applications: The insight that VLMs can be significantly improved through curriculum learning suggests potential for developing more robust models for real-world tasks involving ambiguous visual information. This is particularly relevant for scenarios where users can easily provide visual examples but struggle to articulate precise criteria.
  • Theoretical Insights: The paper underlines the importance of incorporating task-specific training and gradual learning paradigms in the development of VLMs. It challenges the notion that large pre-trained models are inherently capable of zero-shot learning across all domains, especially for tasks requiring nuanced visual understanding.
  • Future Research: The paper sets a foundation for exploring more complex and diverse visuospatial reasoning tasks. Future work could extend SVAT to incorporate real-world datasets and tasks, further investigating the transferability of knowledge between synthetic and realistic benchmarks.

Conclusion

The paper provides a critical examination of the capabilities of current vision-LLMs in handling ambiguous spatial reasoning tasks. The introduction of SVAT and the results of the experiments underline the importance of curriculum learning in enhancing the performance of VLMs. These findings inform future developments in AI, emphasizing the need for adaptable training strategies and task-specific optimization to push the boundaries of what VLMs can achieve in the field of visuospatial reasoning.