mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Diagnosing the Compositional Knowledge of Vision Language Models from a Game-Theoretic View

arXiv 2405.17201 ↗First posted 27 May 2024cs.CVcited by 7

On the map: LLM reasoning → Multimodal reasoning

also in 1 more
Abstract (arXiv)

Compositional reasoning capabilities are usually considered as fundamental skills to characterize human perception. Recent studies show that current Vision Language Models (VLMs) surprisingly lack sufficient knowledge with respect to such capabilities. To this end, we propose to thoroughly diagnose the composition representations encoded by VLMs, systematically revealing the potential cause for this weakness. Specifically, we propose evaluation methods from a novel game-theoretic view to assess the vulnerability of VLMs on different aspects of compositional understanding, e.g., relations and attributes. Extensive experimental results demonstrate and validate several insights to understand the incapabilities of VLMs on compositional reasoning, which provide useful and reliable guidance for future studies. The deliverables will be updated at https://vlms-compositionality-gametheory.github.io/.

Key facts. Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Multimodal reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 56 of its 70 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 27 May 2024.

Builds on

56 of 70 references.

Closest ancestors · 2

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2023Enhancing Multimodal Compositional Reasoning of Visual Language Models with Generative Negative Mining7 Nov
  2. 2022Winoground: Probing Vision and Language Models for Visio-Linguistic Compositionality7 Apr

Other references · 54

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50 most cited of 54 All 54 (JSON)

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 2; 2025: 2; 2026: 3.

7 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025Unveiling the Compositional Ability Gap in Vision-Language Reasoning Model
  2. 2026Diagnosing the Sources of Compositional Failure in Vision-Language Models: A Controlled Analysis
  3. 2025Do VLMs Have Bad Eyes? Diagnosing Compositional Failures via Mechanistic Interpretability
  4. 2024ConMe: Rethinking Evaluation of Compositional Reasoning for Modern VLMs
  5. 2025A Good CREPE needs more than just Sugar: Investigating Biases in Compositional Vision-Language Benchmarks
  6. 2025Explain Before You Answer: A Survey on Compositional Visual Reasoning
  7. 2025Are Large Vision Language Models Good Game Players?
  8. 2024In-Context Learning Improves Compositional Understanding of Vision-Language Models