Hallucination at a Glance: Controlled Visual Edits and Fine-Grained Multimodal Learning (2506.07227v1)

Abstract: Multimodal LLMs (MLLMs) have achieved strong performance on vision-language tasks but still struggle with fine-grained visual differences, leading to hallucinations or missed semantic shifts. We attribute this to limitations in both training data and learning objectives. To address these issues, we propose a controlled data generation pipeline that produces minimally edited image pairs with semantically aligned captions. Using this pipeline, we construct the Micro Edit Dataset (MED), containing over 50K image-text pairs spanning 11 fine-grained edit categories, including attribute, count, position, and object presence changes. Building on MED, we introduce a supervised fine-tuning (SFT) framework with a feature-level consistency loss that promotes stable visual embeddings under small edits. We evaluate our approach on the Micro Edit Detection benchmark, which includes carefully balanced evaluation pairs designed to test sensitivity to subtle visual variations across the same edit categories. Our method improves difference detection accuracy and reduces hallucinations compared to strong baselines, including GPT-4o. Moreover, it yields consistent gains on standard vision-language tasks such as image captioning and visual question answering. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of combining targeted data and alignment objectives for enhancing fine-grained visual reasoning in MLLMs.

Overview of "Hallucination at a Glance: Controlled Visual Editing and Fine-Grained Multimodal Learning"

The paper by Bai et al. tackles the nuanced problem of hallucinations in Multimodal LLMs (MLLMs) when faced with fine-grained vision-language tasks. The authors pinpoint the deficiencies in current MLLMs, attributing hallucinations primarily to the lack of controlled training data and limitations in learning objectives. To address these issues, the authors propose innovative techniques and introduce novel datasets and benchmarking frameworks.

Key Contributions

The paper presents several significant contributions to the field:

1. Controlled Data Generation Pipeline: The authors devised a semantically controlled data generation pipeline to produce minimally edited image pairs with semantically aligned captions. This pipeline is crucial for generating the Micro Edit Dataset (MED), which includes over 50,000 image-text pairs categorized into 11 finely-grained edit types such as count, spatial position, and object presence changes.
2. Micro Edit Dataset (MED): The construction of the MED dataset is highlighted as a pivotal contribution. The dataset consists of carefully controlled image-text pairs that are ideal for training MLLMs to discern slight yet semantically meaningful changes in visual data.
3. Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) Framework: Built upon the MED dataset, the authors propose a supervised fine-tuning approach that implements a feature-level consistency loss. This framework aims to stabilize visual embeddings against minor edits and bolsters the model's ability in visual difference detection.
4. Micro Edit Detection Benchmark: A benchmark specifically designed for evaluating the proficiency of models in detecting subtle visual differences. This benchmark serves as a rigorous test for evaluating the sensitivity of models to fine-grained visual variations.

Key Results

• Improved Accuracy: The proposed method notably enhances difference detection accuracy and diminishes hallucination rates compared to contemporary baseline models, including GPT-4o.
• Performance on Standard Tasks: There are observed consistent improvements in traditional vision-language tasks such as image captioning and visual question answering with the new approaches suggested in the paper.
• Generalization Abilities: By leveraging targeted data construction and alignment objectives, models could generalize better across different datasets and task settings.

Implications and Future Directions

The implications of this work are multifaceted. Practically, the enhanced capability in fine-grained visual difference detection can be pivotal in applications demanding high precision, such as robotics, industrial quality control, and medical imaging. Theoretically, the work suggests a new direction for training MLLMs beyond typical large-scale web-crawled datasets, encouraging focused data collection and nuanced learning objectives to improve model fidelity.

The paper's methodology sets a precedent for future research in AI model improvement through task-specific data augmentation and fine-tuning strategies. It would be insightful to explore extending this framework to multi-step transformations and incorporating temporal dynamics for even more sophisticated multimodal reasoning tasks.

In conclusion, Bai et al.'s work provides a valuable methodological enhancement in the domain of MLLMs, addressing the nuances of hallucination in fine-grained visual contexts and setting a solid groundwork for further exploration and enhancement in multimodal learning.