# Spatial and embodied reasoning Area: [LLM reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/lr/index.md). HTML: https://mlsanity.com/lr/spatial-and-embodied-reasoning/ ## Key facts - Spatial and embodied reasoning: 1,483 papers on arXiv since 2022 (data through 14 Oct 2026). - 267 of its 1,483 mapped papers (18%) cite “SpatialVLM: Endowing Vision-Language Models with Spatial Reasoning Capabilities” (2024, arXiv 2401.12168). - 207 of its 1,483 mapped papers (14%) cite “Thinking in Space: How Multimodal Large Language Models See, Remember, and Recall Spaces” (2024, arXiv 2412.14171). - 100 new papers 17 Sep–14 Oct. ## Most cited here - [SpatialVLM: Endowing Vision-Language Models with Spatial Reasoning Capabilities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.12168/) (2024), cited by 267 papers here - [Thinking in Space: How Multimodal Large Language Models See, Remember, and Recall Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.14171/) (2024), cited by 207 papers here - [SpatialRGPT: Grounded Spatial Reasoning in Vision Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.01584/) (2024), cited by 172 papers here - [3D-LLM: Injecting the 3D World into Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.12981/) (2023), cited by 110 papers here - [Visual Spatial Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.00363/) (2022), cited by 81 papers here - [Inner Monologue: Embodied Reasoning through Planning with Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.05608/) (2022), cited by 81 papers here - [What's "up" with vision-language models? Investigating their struggle with spatial reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.19785/) (2023), cited by 76 papers here - [3DSRBench: A Comprehensive 3D Spatial Reasoning Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.07825/) (2024), cited by 69 papers here - [SQA3D: Situated Question Answering in 3D Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.07474/) (2022), cited by 65 papers here - [SpaceR: Reinforcing MLLMs in Video Spatial Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.01805/) (2025), cited by 64 papers here ## New (17 Sep–14 Oct) - [DeSpatial: The devil of Agentic Spatial Reasoning Lies in 3D Itself](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.20990/) (2026-10-14) - [Do As I Do, Not As I Say: On-Policy Distillation Inherits the Teacher in Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.20989/) (2026-10-14) - [DynThinker: Unifying Static 3D and Dynamic 4D Spatial Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.20598/) (2026-10-14) - [GeoThinker-F: Endogenous Predictive World Representations for Fast Spatial Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.20592/) (2026-10-14) - [Reflect After Failure: Brain-Inspired Self-Evolving Agents for Embodied Spatial Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.20312/) (2026-10-14) - [StateCraft: Augmenting Video World Models with Abstract-State Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.19795/) (2026-10-14) - [Integrating Simulation and Chain-of-thought Reasoning in Multimodal-Language Models For Physical Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.19441/) (2026-10-14) - [Towards a Data-Centric Understanding of Spatial Reasoning in Multimodal Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.19108/) (2026-10-13) - [Plan-Bench: Can Existing VLMs Go Well Beyond Perception to Reason and Plan in Embodied Worlds?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.18836/) (2026-10-13) - [Game2Real-Bench: Do Toy Games Reveal and Transfer to Real-World Visual Reasoning?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.18834/) (2026-10-13) - [GeoReader: Learning Latent Geometry for Spatial Reasoning in Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.18694/) (2026-10-13) - [Breaking the Average: Overcoming Convergent Defaults in Robotic Manipulation via Diagnostic Chain-of-Thought and Structured Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.17983/) (2026-10-13) - [What Makes a Good Visual Representation for Spatial Understanding in MLLMs?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.17844/) (2026-10-13) - [RoTA-Bench: Evaluating 3D Spatial Reasoning through Interactive Projection Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.17665/) (2026-10-13) - [Geospatial Vector Geometry as a Native Spatial Modality for Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.16769/) (2026-10-12) - [EvoSpatial: Experience-Driven Skill and Tool Evolution for Spatial Reasoning Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.16679/) (2026-10-12) - [PINT: A Unified Model with Shared Predictive Intent for Robot Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.16355/) (2026-10-12) - [ReTAC: Residual Test-Time Agentic Computation for Video Spatial Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.16315/) (2026-10-12) - [Geometric Parrots: Rule Absence vs. Rule Fragility in Spatial and Physical Reasoning for Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.16170/) (2026-10-12) - [LERR-Nav: Learning to Coordinate Exploration, Recovery, and Reminiscing for Object Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.15362/) (2026-10-11) - [HumanPhys: A Human-Centric Physical-World Perception Benchmark for Real-World Visual Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.14679/) (2026-10-10) - [GG-Nav: Goal-oriented Grounding Chain-of-Thought Elicits Reasoning in Navigation Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.14541/) (2026-10-10) - [SceneForesee: Learning Scene Evolution for Spatiotemporal Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.14439/) (2026-10-10) - [SpatialASM: Internalizing Active Mentalization for Spatial Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.13832/) (2026-10-09) - [S-Space: Exploring Spatial Workspace in Multimodal Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.13527/) (2026-10-09) - [Mind the Spatial Gap: A Benchmark for Geospatial Reasoning and Constrained Spatial Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.12881/) (2026-10-09) - [VLMs are Native Action Models: Unleashing the Manipulation Capabilities of VLMs with Explicit Action-Space Grounding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.12832/) (2026-10-09) - [SpaceCast-Bench: Evaluating Predictive Spatial Reasoning in Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.12402/) (2026-10-08) - [Distilling Routed 3D Privilege for Spatial Reasoning in Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.12355/) (2026-10-08) - [Perception Test 2026: Challenge Summary and Extension to City-scale Audio-Visual Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.12081/) (2026-10-08)