mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

What's Left? Concept Grounding with Logic-Enhanced Foundation Models

arXiv 2310.16035 ↗First posted 24 Oct 2023cs.CV cs.AI cs.CLcited by 33

On the map: LLM reasoning → Multimodal reasoning

also in 1 more
Abstract (arXiv)

Recent works such as VisProg and ViperGPT have smartly composed foundation models for visual reasoning-using large language models (LLMs) to produce programs that can be executed by pre-trained vision-language models. However, they operate in limited domains, such as 2D images, not fully exploiting the generalization of language: abstract concepts like "left" can also be grounded in 3D, temporal, and action data, as in moving to your left. This limited generalization stems from these inference-only methods' inability to learn or adapt pre-trained models to a new domain. We propose the Logic-Enhanced Foundation Model (LEFT), a unified framework that learns to ground and reason with concepts across domains with a differentiable, domain-independent, first-order logic-based program executor. LEFT has an LLM interpreter that outputs a program represented in a general, logic-based reasoning language, which is shared across all domains and tasks. LEFT's executor then executes the program with trainable domain-specific grounding modules. We show that LEFT flexibly learns concepts in four domains: 2D images, 3D scenes, human motions, and robotic manipulation. It exhibits strong reasoning ability in a wide variety of tasks, including those that are complex and not seen during training, and can be easily applied to new domains.

Key facts. Cited by 33 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Multimodal reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 43 of its 49 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 24 Oct 2023.

Builds on

43 of 49 references.

Closest ancestors · 2

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2023ViperGPT: Visual Inference via Python Execution for Reasoning14 Mar
  2. 2022Visual Programming: Compositional visual reasoning without training18 Nov

Other references · 41

  1. 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,744
  2. 2020Language Models are Few-Shot Learnerscited by 32,419
  3. 2015Faster R-CNN: Towards Real-Time Object Detection with Region Proposal Networkscited by 9,639
  4. 2017PointNet++: Deep Hierarchical Feature Learning on Point Sets in a Metric Spacecited by 4,401
  5. 2022Flamingo: a Visual Language Model for Few-Shot Learningcited by 4,386
  6. 2023Grounding DINO: Marrying DINO with Grounded Pre-Training for Open-Set Object Detectioncited by 3,332
  7. 2017ScanNet: Richly-annotated 3D Reconstructions of Indoor Scenescited by 3,117
  8. 2016CLEVR: A Diagnostic Dataset for Compositional Language and Elementary Visual Reasoningcited by 1,457
  9. 2021MDETR -- Modulated Detection for End-to-End Multi-Modal Understandingcited by 819
  10. 2022OFA: Unifying Architectures, Tasks, and Modalities Through a Simple Sequence-to-Sequence Learning Frameworkcited by 745
  11. 2021Multimodal Few-Shot Learning with Frozen Language Modelscited by 661
  12. 2021CLIPort: What and Where Pathways for Robotic Manipulationcited by 622
29 more
  1. 2022Google Scanned Objects: A High-Quality Dataset of 3D Scanned Household Itemscited by 612
  2. 2023OpenFlamingo: An Open-Source Framework for Training Large Autoregressive Vision-Language Modelscited by 565
  3. 2021DenseCLIP: Language-Guided Dense Prediction with Context-Aware Promptingcited by 532
  4. 2021Unifying Vision-and-Language Tasks via Text Generationcited by 412
  5. 2019The Neuro-Symbolic Concept Learner: Interpreting Scenes, Words, and Sentences From Natural Supervisioncited by 372
  6. 2018Neural-Symbolic VQA: Disentangling Reasoning from Vision and Language Understandingcited by 304
  7. 2022Binding Language Models in Symbolic Languagescited by 228
  8. 2018Compositional Attention Networks for Machine Reasoningcited by 183
  9. 2018Measuring abstract reasoning in neural networkscited by 166
  10. 2019Neural Logic Machinescited by 145
  11. 2022Multi-View Transformer for 3D Visual Groundingcited by 140
  12. 2017Inferring and Executing Programs for Visual Reasoningcited by 130
  13. 2021Bottom Up Top Down Detection Transformers for Language Grounding in Images and Point Cloudscited by 128
  14. 2021SAT: 2D Semantics Assisted Training for 3D Visual Groundingcited by 124
  15. 2019Learning by Abstraction: The Neural State Machinecited by 113
  16. 2022Prompting Is Programming: A Query Language for Large Language Modelscited by 110
  17. 2022Language Model Cascadescited by 107
  18. 2016Learning to Compose Neural Networks for Question Answeringcited by 85
  19. 2019CLEVR-Ref+: Diagnosing Visual Reasoning with Referring Expressionscited by 73
  20. 2021Grounding Physical Concepts of Objects and Events Through Dynamic Visual Reasoningcited by 68
  21. 2020Closed Loop Neural-Symbolic Learning via Integrating Neural Perception, Grammar Parsing, and Symbolic Reasoningcited by 58
  22. 2023NS3D: Neuro-Symbolic Grounding of 3D Objects and Relationscited by 57
  23. 2018Transparency by Design: Closing the Gap Between Performance and Interpretability in Visual Reasoningcited by 51
  24. 2019Meta Module Network for Compositional Visual Reasoningcited by 39
  25. 2020Visual Concept-Metaconcept Learningcited by 39
  26. 2023Motion Question Answering via Modular Motion Programscited by 27
  27. 2023Programmatically Grounded, Compositionally Generalizable Robotic Manipulationcited by 26
  28. 20223D Concept Grounding on Neural Fieldscited by 13
  29. 2022Grammar-Based Grounded Lexicon Learningcited by 11

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2023: 1; 2024: 13; 2025: 12; 2026: 7.

33 papers.

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  1. 2024ReKep: Spatio-Temporal Reasoning of Relational Keypoint Constraints for Robotic Manipulationcited by 315
  2. 2024Learning to Localize Objects Improves Spatial Reasoning in Visual-LLMscited by 49
  3. 2025Explain Before You Answer: A Survey on Compositional Visual Reasoningcited by 28
  4. 2024A Survey of Robotic Language Grounding: Tradeoffs between Symbols and Embeddingscited by 24
  5. 2025Generative Physical AI in Vision: A Surveycited by 24
  6. 2024Towards Rationality in Language and Multimodal Agents: A Surveycited by 16
  7. 2024A Survey on Compositional Learning of AI Models: Theoretical and Experimental Practicescited by 15
  8. 2024What Makes a Maze Look Like a Maze?cited by 11
  9. 2025MoVer: Motion Verification for Motion Graphics Animationscited by 10
  10. 2024DeiSAM: Segment Anything with Deictic Promptingcited by 9
  11. 2024Naturally Supervised 3D Visual Grounding with Language-Regularized Concept Learnerscited by 8
  12. 2024LogiCity: Advancing Neuro-Symbolic AI with Abstract Urban Simulationcited by 8
21 more
  1. 2025NePTune: A Neuro-Pythonic Framework for Tunable Compositional Reasoning on Vision-Languagecited by 8
  2. 2025LRR-Bench: Left, Right or Rotate? Vision-Language models Still Struggle With Spatial Understanding Taskscited by 6
  3. 2025ESCA: Contextualizing Embodied Agents via Scene-Graph Generationcited by 6
  4. 2024On the Robustness of Language Guidance for Low-Level Vision Tasks: Findings from Depth Estimationcited by 4
  5. 2025Abductive Logical Rule Induction by Bridging Inductive Logic Programming and Multimodal Large Language Modelscited by 3
  6. 2025Executable Analytic Concepts as the Missing Link Between VLM Insight and Precise Manipulationcited by 3
  7. 2023Generating by Understanding: Neural Visual Generation with Logical Symbol Groundingscited by 2
  8. 2024Learning for Long-Horizon Planning via Neuro-Symbolic Abductive Imitationcited by 2
  9. 2025Neuro-Symbolic Frameworks: Conceptual Characterization and Empirical Comparative Analysiscited by 2
  10. 2024SYNAPSE: SYmbolic Neural-Aided Preference Synthesis Enginecited by 1
  11. 2025Referring Expressions as a Lens into Spatial Language Grounding in Vision-Language Modelscited by 1
  12. 2026An Agentic Framework for Neuro-Symbolic Programmingcited by 1
  13. 2026Visual General Intelligence: A White Papercited by 1
  14. 2024Nl2Hltl2Plan: Scaling Up Natural Language Understanding for Multi-Robots Through Hierarchical Temporal Logic Task Representationcited by 0
  15. 2025Norm-Q: Effective Compression Method for Hidden Markov Models in Neuro-Symbolic Applicationscited by 0
  16. 2025A Tool Bottleneck Framework for Clinically-Informed and Interpretable Medical Image Understandingcited by 0
  17. 2026Neuro-Symbolic Decoding of Neural Activitycited by 0
  18. 2026GRAIL: Autonomous Concept Grounding for Neuro-Symbolic Reinforcement Learningcited by 0
  19. 2026CRISP: Compositional Relations as Invariant Structural Priors for Domain Generalizationcited by 0
  20. 2026Explicit Kinematic Guidance from Analytic Concepts for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 0
  21. 2026A Neurosymbolic Approach for Explainable Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Diseasecited by 0

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  3. 2025UniVG-R1: Reasoning Guided Universal Visual Grounding with Reinforcement Learning
  4. 2026Thinking with Visual Grounding
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  6. 2025NAVER: A Neuro-Symbolic Compositional Automaton for Visual Grounding with Explicit Logic Reasoning
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