IllusionBench+: A Large-scale and Comprehensive Benchmark for Visual Illusion Understanding in Vision-Language Models
On the map: Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models → VLM benchmarks and visual reasoning
Abstract (arXiv)
Current Visual Language Models (VLMs) show impressive image understanding but struggle with visual illusions, especially in real-world scenarios. Existing benchmarks focus on classical cognitive illusions, which have been learned by state-of-the-art (SOTA) VLMs, revealing issues such as hallucinations and limited perceptual abilities. To address this gap, we introduce IllusionBench, a comprehensive visual illusion dataset that encompasses not only classic cognitive illusions but also real-world scene illusions. This dataset features 1,051 images, 5,548 question-answer pairs, and 1,051 golden text descriptions that address the presence, causes, and content of the illusions. We evaluate ten SOTA VLMs on this dataset using true-or-false, multiple-choice, and open-ended tasks. In addition to real-world illusions, we design trap illusions that resemble classical patterns but differ in reality, highlighting hallucination issues in SOTA models. The top-performing model, GPT-4o, achieves 80.59% accuracy on true-or-false tasks and 76.75% on multiple-choice questions, but still lags behind human performance. In the semantic description task, GPT-4o's hallucinations on classical illusions result in low scores for trap illusions, even falling behind some open-source models. IllusionBench is, to the best of our knowledge, the largest and most comprehensive benchmark for visual illusions in VLMs to date.
Key facts. Cited by 12 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in VLM benchmarks and visual reasoning, one of 16 directions in Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models. Builds on 14 of its 33 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 1 Jan 2025.
Builds on
14 of 33 references.
Closest ancestors · 4
Same direction, newest first
- 2024IllusionVQA: A Challenging Optical Illusion Dataset for Vision Language Models23 Mar
- 2023Grounding Visual Illusions in Language: Do Vision-Language Models Perceive Illusions Like Humans?31 Oct
- 2023Qwen-VL: A Versatile Vision-Language Model for Understanding, Localization, Text Reading, and Beyond24 Aug
- 2023Vision-Language Models for Vision Tasks: A Survey3 Apr
Other references · 10
- 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,396
- 2023Judging LLM-as-a-Judge with MT-Bench and Chatbot Arenacited by 8,626
- 2024Gemini 1.5: Unlocking multimodal understanding across millions of tokens of contextcited by 3,224
- 2023A Survey on Multimodal Large Language Modelscited by 909
- 2024DeepSeek-VL: Towards Real-World Vision-Language Understandingcited by 733
- 2023CogVLM: Visual Expert for Pretrained Language Modelscited by 708
- 2023HallusionBench: An Advanced Diagnostic Suite for Entangled Language Hallucination and Visual Illusion in Large Vision-Language Modelscited by 583
- 2023mPLUG-Owl2: Revolutionizing Multi-modal Large Language Model with Modality Collaborationcited by 547
- 2024InternLM-XComposer2: Mastering Free-form Text-Image Composition and Comprehension in Vision-Language Large Modelcited by 326
- 2019Neural Networks Trained on Natural Scenes Exhibit Gestalt Closurecited by 6
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2025: 4; 2026: 8.
12 papers.
- 2025MVI-Bench: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Evaluating Robustness to Misleading Visual Inputs in LVLMscited by 15
- 2026Do VLMs Perceive or Recall? Probing Visual Perception vs. Memory with Classic Visual Illusionscited by 8
- 2025SemVink: Advancing VLMs' Semantic Understanding of Optical Illusions via Visual Global Thinkingcited by 6
- 2025Hate in Plain Sight: On the Risks of Moderating AI-Generated Hateful Illusionscited by 6
- 2025Illusions in Humans and AI: How Visual Perception Aligns and Divergescited by 3
- 2026SMSP: A Plug-and-Play Strategy of Multi-Scale Perception for MLLMs to Perceive Visual Illusionscited by 2
- 2026Learn to Think: Improving Multimodal Reasoning through Vision-Aware Self-Improvement Trainingcited by 1
- 2026System-Mediated Attention Imbalances Make Vision-Language Models Say Yescited by 0
- 2026Spatial Colour Mixing Illusions as a Perception Stress Test for Vision-Language Modelscited by 0
- 2026FruitEnsemble: MLLM-Guided Arbitration for Heterogeneous ensemble in Fine-Grained Fruit Recognitioncited by 0
- 2026Can LVLMs Uncover the Truth Behind Visual Illusions? An Analysis of Perceptual and Reasoning Capabilitiescited by 0
- 2026Auditory Illusion Benchmark for Large Audio Language Modelscited by 0
- 2026Auditory Illusion Benchmark for Large Audio Language Models2 Sep 2026
- 2026Can LVLMs Uncover the Truth Behind Visual Illusions? An Analysis of Perceptual and Reasoning Capabilities30 Jul 2026
- 2026FruitEnsemble: MLLM-Guided Arbitration for Heterogeneous ensemble in Fine-Grained Fruit Recognition20 May 2026
- 2026Learn to Think: Improving Multimodal Reasoning through Vision-Aware Self-Improvement Training12 May 2026
- 2026SMSP: A Plug-and-Play Strategy of Multi-Scale Perception for MLLMs to Perceive Visual Illusions24 Mar 2026
- 2026Spatial Colour Mixing Illusions as a Perception Stress Test for Vision-Language Models6 Mar 2026
- 2026Do VLMs Perceive or Recall? Probing Visual Perception vs. Memory with Classic Visual Illusions29 Jan 2026
- 2026System-Mediated Attention Imbalances Make Vision-Language Models Say Yes18 Jan 2026
- 2025MVI-Bench: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Evaluating Robustness to Misleading Visual Inputs in LVLMs18 Nov 2025
- 2025Illusions in Humans and AI: How Visual Perception Aligns and Diverges17 Aug 2025
- 2025Hate in Plain Sight: On the Risks of Moderating AI-Generated Hateful Illusions30 Jul 2025
- 2025SemVink: Advancing VLMs' Semantic Understanding of Optical Illusions via Visual Global Thinking3 Jun 2025
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2026Seeing Is Believing? A Benchmark for Multimodal Large Language Models on Visual Illusions and Anomalies
- 2026Seeing the Evidence, Missing the Answer: Tool-Guided Vision-Language Models on Visual Illusions
- 2026Illusion-Aware Visual Preprocessing and Anti-Illusion Prompting for Classic Illusion Understanding in Vision-Language Models
- 2025Do Large Vision-Language Models Distinguish between the Actual and Apparent Features of Illusions?
- 2026Seeing without Looking: Do Vision-Language Benchmarks Really Test Vision?
- 2025Extracting Visual Facts from Intermediate Layers for Mitigating Hallucinations in Multimodal Large Language Models
- 2024HaloQuest: A Visual Hallucination Dataset for Advancing Multimodal Reasoning
- 2026CDH-Bench: A Commonsense-Driven Hallucination Benchmark for Evaluating Visual Fidelity in Vision-Language Models