mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Beyond Words: Exploring Cultural Value Sensitivity in Multimodal Models

arXiv 2502.14906 ↗First posted 18 Feb 2025cs.CL cs.AIcited by 14

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Abstract (arXiv)

Investigating value alignment in Large Language Models (LLMs) based on cultural context has become a critical area of research. However, similar biases have not been extensively explored in large vision-language models (VLMs). As the scale of multimodal models continues to grow, it becomes increasingly important to assess whether images can serve as reliable proxies for culture and how these values are embedded through the integration of both visual and textual data. In this paper, we conduct a thorough evaluation of multimodal model at different scales, focusing on their alignment with cultural values. Our findings reveal that, much like LLMs, VLMs exhibit sensitivity to cultural values, but their performance in aligning with these values is highly context-dependent. While VLMs show potential in improving value understanding through the use of images, this alignment varies significantly across contexts highlighting the complexities and underexplored challenges in the alignment of multimodal models.

Key facts. Cited by 14 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 31 of its 73 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 18 Feb 2025.

Builds on

31 of 73 references.

References · 31

  1. 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,456
  2. 2023Judging LLM-as-a-Judge with MT-Bench and Chatbot Arenacited by 8,393
  3. 2023Improved Baselines with Visual Instruction Tuningcited by 4,362
  4. 2024Qwen2 Technical Reportcited by 2,076
  5. 2023Towards Measuring the Representation of Subjective Global Opinions in Language Modelscited by 424
  6. 2022Visual Spatial Reasoningcited by 288
  7. 2022Challenges and Strategies in Cross-Cultural NLPcited by 216
  8. 2023Evaluating the Moral Beliefs Encoded in LLMscited by 211
  9. 2021Visually Grounded Reasoning across Languages and Culturescited by 188
  10. 2023The Capacity for Moral Self-Correction in Large Language Modelscited by 171
  11. 2024Towards Measuring and Modeling "Culture" in LLMs: A Surveycited by 166
  12. 2017No Classification without Representation: Assessing Geodiversity Issues in Open Data Sets for the Developing Worldcited by 152
19 more
  1. 2022Probing Pre-Trained Language Models for Cross-Cultural Differences in Valuescited by 147
  2. 2024CVQA: Culturally-diverse Multilingual Visual Question Answering Benchmarkcited by 118
  3. 2022Extracting Cultural Commonsense Knowledge at Scalecited by 76
  4. 2024WorldValuesBench: A Large-Scale Benchmark Dataset for Multi-Cultural Value Awareness of Language Modelscited by 59
  5. 2024CULTURE-GEN: Revealing Global Cultural Perception in Language Models through Natural Language Promptingcited by 55
  6. 2023Knowledge of cultural moral norms in large language modelscited by 51
  7. 2023COPAL-ID: Indonesian Language Reasoning with Local Culture and Nuancescited by 35
  8. 2023EtiCor: Corpus for Analyzing LLMs for Etiquettescited by 33
  9. 2022Does Moral Code Have a Moral Code? Probing Delphi's Moral Philosophycited by 31
  10. 2023This Land is {Your, My} Land: Evaluating Geopolitical Biases in Language Modelscited by 31
  11. 2024Evaluating Visual and Cultural Interpretation: The K-Viscuit Benchmark with Human-VLM Collaborationcited by 19
  12. 2023Navigating Cultural Chasms: Exploring and Unlocking the Cultural POV of Text-To-Image Modelscited by 16
  13. 2024Exploring Visual Culture Awareness in GPT-4V: A Comprehensive Probingcited by 12
  14. 2023On the Cultural Gap in Text-to-Image Generationcited by 10
  15. 2024CIC: A Framework for Culturally-Aware Image Captioningcited by 8
  16. 2024CVLUE: A New Benchmark Dataset for Chinese Vision-Language Understanding Evaluationcited by 8
  17. 2024Risks, Causes, and Mitigations of Widespread Deployments of Large Language Models (LLMs): A Surveycited by 8
  18. 2024The African Woman is Rhythmic and Soulful: An Investigation of Implicit Biases in LLM Open-ended Text Generationcited by 5
  19. 2024Crossroads of Continents: Automated Artifact Extraction for Cultural Adaptation with Large Multimodal Modelscited by 2

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 10; 2026: 4.

14 papers.

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  1. 2025DRISHTIKON: A Multimodal Multilingual Benchmark for Testing Language Models' Understanding on Indian Culturecited by 13
  2. 2025RAVENEA: A Benchmark for Multimodal Retrieval-Augmented Visual Culture Understandingcited by 8
  3. 2025Multimodal Cultural Safety: Evaluation Framework and Alignment Strategiescited by 8
  4. 2025Uncovering Cultural Representation Disparities in Vision-Language Modelscited by 4
  5. 2025Who Evaluates AI's Social Impacts? Mapping Coverage and Gaps in First and Third Party Evaluationscited by 4
  6. 2025Evaluation of Cultural Competence of Vision-Language Modelscited by 3
  7. 2025Finding Culture-Sensitive Neurons in Vision-Language Modelscited by 3
  8. 2025World in a Frame: Understanding Culture Mixing as a New Challenge for Vision-Language Modelscited by 3
  9. 2026A Unified Framework to Quantify Cultural Intelligence of AIcited by 2
  10. 2025On The Conceptualization and Societal Impact of Cross-Cultural Biascited by 1
  11. 2025From Perception to Punchline: Empowering VLM with the Art of In-the-wild Memecited by 1
  12. 2026ValueGround: Evaluating Culture-Conditioned Visual Value Grounding in MLLMscited by 1
2 more
  1. 2026Pragmatics Meets Culture: Culturally-adapted Artwork Description Generation and Evaluationcited by 0
  2. 2026CultureMINE: Datasets and Methods for Improving the Cultural Capabilities of NLP Systemscited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2024Self-Alignment: Improving Alignment of Cultural Values in LLMs via In-Context Learning
  2. 2025CultureVLM: Characterizing and Improving Cultural Understanding of Vision-Language Models for over 100 Countries
  3. 2023CDEval: A Benchmark for Measuring the Cultural Dimensions of Large Language Models
  4. 2025Break the Checkbox: Challenging Closed-Style Evaluations of Cultural Alignment in LLMs
  5. 2024See It from My Perspective: How Language Affects Cultural Bias in Image Understanding
  6. 2026Progressing beyond Art Masterpieces or Touristic Clich'es: how to assess your LLMs for cultural alignment?
  7. 2025From Surveys to Narratives: Rethinking Cultural Value Adaptation in LLMs
  8. 2025Cultural Value Alignment in Large Language Models: A Prompt-based Analysis of Schwartz Values in Gemini, ChatGPT, and DeepSeek