# One Self-Configurable Model to Solve Many Abstract Visual Reasoning Problems

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.09997 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.09997/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Multimodal reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 30 of its 47 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 15 Dec 2023.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Multimodal reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/lr/multimodal-reasoning/)

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

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [Batch Normalization: Accelerating Deep Network Training by Reducing Internal Covariate Shift](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.03167/) (2015)
- [Outrageously Large Neural Networks: The Sparsely-Gated Mixture-of-Experts Layer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1701.06538/) (2017)
- [Gaussian Error Linear Units (GELUs)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.08415/) (2016)
- [Estimating or Propagating Gradients Through Stochastic Neurons for Conditional Computation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1308.3432/) (2013)
- [Deformable Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.06211/) (2017)
- [Deformable ConvNets v2: More Deformable, Better Results](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.11168/) (2018)
- [Dynamic Neural Networks: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.04906/) (2021)
- [A simple neural network module for relational reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.01427/) (2017)
- [Dynamic Filter Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1605.09673/) (2016)
- [RAVEN: A Dataset for Relational and Analogical Visual rEasoNing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.02741/) (2019)
- [Conditional Computation in Neural Networks for faster models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.06297/) (2015)
- [Measuring abstract reasoning in neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.04225/) (2018)
- [LambdaNetworks: Modeling Long-Range Interactions Without Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.08602/) (2021)
- [Partial Transfer Learning with Selective Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.07901/) (2017)
- [Stratified Rule-Aware Network for Abstract Visual Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.06838/) (2020)
- [Bongard-LOGO: A New Benchmark for Human-Level Concept Learning and Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.00763/) (2020)
- [Learning Perceptual Inference by Contrasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.00086/) (2019)
- [Learning to Make Analogies by Contrasting Abstract Relational Structure](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.00120/) (2019)
- [The Scattering Compositional Learner: Discovering Objects, Attributes, Relationships in Analogical Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.04212/) (2020)
- [Scale-Localized Abstract Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.09405/) (2020)
- [Abstract Diagrammatic Reasoning with Multiplex Graph Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11197/) (2020)
- [Deep Learning Methods for Abstract Visual Reasoning: A Survey on Raven's Progressive Matrices](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.12382/) (2022)
- [Abstract Reasoning with Distracting Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.00569/) (2019)
- [A Review of Emerging Research Directions in Abstract Visual Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.10284/) (2022)
- [Deformable Kernels: Adapting Effective Receptive Fields for Object Deformation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.02940/) (2019)
- [Multi-Label Contrastive Learning for Abstract Visual Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.01944/) (2020)
- [Effective Abstract Reasoning with Dual-Contrast Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.13720/) (2022)
- [Learning to reason over visual objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.02260/) (2023)
- [IQ of Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.01692/) (2017)

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [What is the Visual Cognition Gap between Humans and Multimodal LLMs?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.10424/) (2024)
- [Bongard-RWR+: Real-World Representations of Fine-Grained Concepts in Bongard Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.12026/) (2025)
- [Toward Cognitive Supersensing in Multimodal Large Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.01541/) (2026)
- [A-I-RAVEN and I-RAVEN-Mesh: Two New Benchmarks for Abstract Visual Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.11061/) (2024)
- [Advancing Generalization Across a Variety of Abstract Visual Reasoning Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.13391/) (2025)
- [Predictive Reasoning with Augmented Anomaly Contrastive Learning for Compositional Visual Relations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.01125/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Abstract Visual Reasoning (AVR) comprises a wide selection of various problems similar to those used in human IQ tests. Recent years have brought dynamic progress in solving particular AVR tasks, however, in the contemporary literature AVR problems are largely dealt with in isolation, leading to highly specialized task-specific methods. With the aim of developing universal learning systems in the AVR domain, we propose the unified model for solving Single-Choice Abstract visual Reasoning tasks (SCAR), capable of solving various single-choice AVR tasks, without making any a priori assumptions about the task structure, in particular the number and location of panels. The proposed model relies on a novel Structure-Aware dynamic Layer (SAL), which adapts its weights to the structure of the considered AVR problem. Experiments conducted on Raven's Progressive Matrices, Visual Analogy Problems, and Odd One Out problems show that SCAR (SAL-based models, in general) effectively solves diverse AVR tasks, and its performance is on par with the state-of-the-art task-specific baselines. What is more, SCAR demonstrates effective knowledge reuse in multi-task and transfer learning settings. To our knowledge, this work is the first successful attempt to construct a general single-choice AVR solver relying on self-configurable architecture and unified solving method. With this work we aim to stimulate and foster progress on task-independent research paths in the AVR domain, with the long-term goal of development of a general AVR solver.