# REFLECT: Summarizing Robot Experiences for Failure Explanation and Correction

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.15724 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.15724/

## Key facts

- Cited by 175 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 36 of its 49 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 27 Jun 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 36)

- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11903/) (2022)
- [ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03629/) (2022)
- [BLIP-2: Bootstrapping Language-Image Pre-training with Frozen Image Encoders and Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.12597/) (2023)
- [Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Reasoners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11916/) (2022)
- [Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.12712/) (2023)
- [Do As I Can, Not As I Say: Grounding Language in Robotic Affordances](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.01691/) (2022)
- [Code as Policies: Language Model Programs for Embodied Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.07753/) (2022)
- [Inner Monologue: Embodied Reasoning through Planning with Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.05608/) (2022)
- [Language Models as Zero-Shot Planners: Extracting Actionable Knowledge for Embodied Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.07207/) (2022)
- [AI2-THOR: An Interactive 3D Environment for Visual AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1712.05474/) (2017)
- [MDETR -- Modulated Detection for End-to-End Multi-Modal Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.12763/) (2021)
- [ProgPrompt: Generating Situated Robot Task Plans using Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.11302/) (2022)
- [Socratic Models: Composing Zero-Shot Multimodal Reasoning with Language](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.00598/) (2022)
- [LLM-Planner: Few-Shot Grounded Planning for Embodied Agents with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.04088/) (2022)
- [AudioCLIP: Extending CLIP to Image, Text and Audio](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.13043/) (2021)
- [Visual Spatial Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.00363/) (2022)
- [Vid2Seq: Large-Scale Pretraining of a Visual Language Model for Dense Video Captioning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.14115/) (2023)
- [Wav2CLIP: Learning Robust Audio Representations From CLIP](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.11499/) (2021)
- [Generalized Planning in PDDL Domains with Pretrained Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11014/) (2023)
- [End-to-End Dense Video Captioning with Parallel Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.07781/) (2021)
- [Language Models with Image Descriptors are Strong Few-Shot Video-Language Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.10747/) (2022)
- [Errors are Useful Prompts: Instruction Guided Task Programming with Verifier-Assisted Iterative Prompting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.14100/) (2023)
- [Explainable AI for Robot Failures: Generating Explanations that Improve User Assistance in Fault Recovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.01625/) (2021)
- [CAPE: Corrective Actions from Precondition Errors using Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09935/) (2022)
- [End-to-end Dense Video Captioning as Sequence Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.08121/) (2022)
- [Summarize the Past to Predict the Future: Natural Language Descriptions of Context Boost Multimodal Object Interaction Anticipation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.09209/) (2023)
- [Modeling Dynamic Environments with Scene Graph Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.17537/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 175)

- [ExpeL: LLM Agents Are Experiential Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.10144/) (2023)
- [PIVOT: Iterative Visual Prompting Elicits Actionable Knowledge for VLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.07872/) (2024)
- [Scene-LLM: Extending Language Model for 3D Visual Understanding and Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11401/) (2024)
- [RoboMIND: Benchmark on Multi-embodiment Intelligence Normative Data for Robot Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.13877/) (2024)
- [Cosmos-Reason1: From Physical Common Sense To Embodied Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.15558/) (2025)
- [ThinkAct: Vision-Language-Action Reasoning via Reinforced Visual Latent Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.16815/) (2025)
- [RoboBrain: A Unified Brain Model for Robotic Manipulation from Abstract to Concrete](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.21257/) (2025)
- [Large Language Models for Robotics: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.07226/) (2023)
- [GenSim: Generating Robotic Simulation Tasks via Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.01361/) (2023)
- [Meta-Prompting: Enhancing Language Models with Task-Agnostic Scaffolding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.12954/) (2024)
- [Avalon's Game of Thoughts: Battle Against Deception through Recursive Contemplation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.01320/) (2023)
- [Toward General-Purpose Robots via Foundation Models: A Survey and Meta-Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.08782/) (2023)
- [Large Language Models for Robotics: Opportunities, Challenges, and Perspectives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.04334/) (2024)
- [Unpacking Failure Modes of Generative Policies: Runtime Monitoring of Consistency and Progress](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.04640/) (2024)
- [Code-as-Monitor: Constraint-aware Visual Programming for Reactive and Proactive Robotic Failure Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.04455/) (2024)
- [Real-World Robot Applications of Foundation Models: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.05741/) (2024)
- [TRANSIC: Sim-to-Real Policy Transfer by Learning from Online Correction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.10315/) (2024)
- [VLM Agents Generate Their Own Memories: Distilling Experience into Embodied Programs of Thought](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.14596/) (2024)
- [From Foresight to Forethought: VLM-In-the-Loop Policy Steering via Latent Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.01828/) (2025)
- [RACER: Rich Language-Guided Failure Recovery Policies for Imitation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.14674/) (2024)
- [Distilling and Retrieving Generalizable Knowledge for Robot Manipulation via Language Corrections](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.10678/) (2023)
- [Robot Utility Models: General Policies for Zero-Shot Deployment in New Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.05865/) (2024)
- [Failure Prediction at Runtime for Generative Robot Policies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.09459/) (2025)
- [RoboFAC: A Comprehensive Framework for Robotic Failure Analysis and Correction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.12224/) (2025)
- [On the Prospects of Incorporating Large Language Models (LLMs) in Automated Planning and Scheduling (APS)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.02500/) (2024)
- [Closed-Loop Open-Vocabulary Mobile Manipulation with GPT-4V](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.10220/) (2024)
- [Interactive Task Planning with Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.10645/) (2023)
- [Open-Ended Instructable Embodied Agents with Memory-Augmented Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.15127/) (2023)
- [Multi-Task Interactive Robot Fleet Learning with Visual World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.22689/) (2024)
- [V-IRL: Grounding Virtual Intelligence in Real Life](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.03310/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The ability to detect and analyze failed executions automatically is crucial for an explainable and robust robotic system. Recently, Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated strong reasoning abilities on textual inputs. To leverage the power of LLMs for robot failure explanation, we introduce REFLECT, a framework which queries LLM for failure reasoning based on a hierarchical summary of robot past experiences generated from multisensory observations. The failure explanation can further guide a language-based planner to correct the failure and complete the task. To systematically evaluate the framework, we create the RoboFail dataset with a variety of tasks and failure scenarios. We demonstrate that the LLM-based framework is able to generate informative failure explanations that assist successful correction planning.