# Are Video Models Ready as Zero-Shot Reasoners? An Empirical Study with the MME-CoF Benchmark

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.26802 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.26802/

## Key facts

- Cited by 43 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Multimodal reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 64 of its 81 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 30 Oct 2025.

## Placed in

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

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 64)

- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [The Llama 3 Herd of Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.21783/) (2024)
- [Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11903/) (2022)
- [DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.12948/) (2025)
- [Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Reasoners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11916/) (2022)
- [Gemini 2.5: Pushing the Frontier with Advanced Reasoning, Multimodality, Long Context, and Next Generation Agentic Capabilities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.06261/) (2025)
- [Qwen Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16609/) (2023)
- [LLaVA-OneVision: Easy Visual Task Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.03326/) (2024)
- [Wan: Open and Advanced Large-Scale Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.20314/) (2025)
- [Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15127/) (2023)
- [CogVideoX: Text-to-Video Diffusion Models with An Expert Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06072/) (2024)
- [MMMU: A Massive Multi-discipline Multimodal Understanding and Reasoning Benchmark for Expert AGI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16502/) (2023)
- [Learn to Explain: Multimodal Reasoning via Thought Chains for Science Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.09513/) (2022)
- [HunyuanVideo: A Systematic Framework For Large Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03603/) (2024)
- [ChartQA: A Benchmark for Question Answering about Charts with Visual and Logical Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.10244/) (2022)
- [Video-MME: The First-Ever Comprehensive Evaluation Benchmark of Multi-modal LLMs in Video Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.21075/) (2024)
- [VideoMAE: Masked Autoencoders are Data-Efficient Learners for Self-Supervised Video Pre-Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.12602/) (2022)
- [Video Swin Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.13230/) (2021)
- [Multiscale Vision Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.11227/) (2021)
- [Cosmos World Foundation Model Platform for Physical AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.03575/) (2025)
- [VideoLLaMA 2: Advancing Spatial-Temporal Modeling and Audio Understanding in Video-LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.07476/) (2024)
- [Automatic Chain of Thought Prompting in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03493/) (2022)
- [Open-Sora: Democratizing Efficient Video Production for All](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.20404/) (2024)
- [MathVerse: Does Your Multi-modal LLM Truly See the Diagrams in Visual Math Problems?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14624/) (2024)
- [VideoPoet: A Large Language Model for Zero-Shot Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.14125/) (2023)
- [Video-R1: Reinforcing Video Reasoning in MLLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.21776/) (2025)
- [V*: Guided Visual Search as a Core Mechanism in Multimodal LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.14135/) (2023)
- [Seed1.5-VL Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.07062/) (2025)
- [MAGVIT: Masked Generative Video Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.05199/) (2022)
- [Seedance 1.0: Exploring the Boundaries of Video Generation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.09113/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 43)

- [DriveLaW:Unifying Planning and Video Generation in a Latent Driving World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.23421/) (2025)
- [Thinking with Video: Video Generation as a Promising Multimodal Reasoning Paradigm](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.04570/) (2025)
- [A Very Big Video Reasoning Suite](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.20159/) (2026)
- [Reasoning via Video: The First Evaluation of Video Models' Reasoning Abilities through Maze-Solving Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.15065/) (2025)
- [TiViBench: Benchmarking Think-in-Video Reasoning for Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.13704/) (2025)
- [DiffThinker: Towards Generative Multimodal Reasoning with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.24165/) (2025)
- [Thinking-while-Generating: Interleaving Textual Reasoning throughout Visual Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.16671/) (2025)
- [Demystifying Video Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.16870/) (2026)
- [RULER-Bench: Probing Rule-based Reasoning Abilities of Next-level Video Generation Models for Vision Foundation Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.02622/) (2025)
- [MMGR: Multi-Modal Generative Reasoning Benchmark and Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.14691/) (2025)
- [MICo-150K: A Comprehensive Dataset Advancing Multi-Image Composition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.07348/) (2025)
- [Thinking in Frames: How Visual Context and Test-Time Scaling Empower Video Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.21037/) (2026)
- [CoF-T2I: Video Models as Pure Visual Reasoners for Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.10061/) (2026)
- [Video Models Can Reason with Verifiable Rewards](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.15458/) (2026)
- [Can Vision Language Models Assess Graphic Design Aesthetics? A Benchmark, Evaluation, and Dataset Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.01083/) (2026)
- [A4-Agent: An Agentic Framework for Zero-Shot Affordance Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.14442/) (2025)
- [GUI-GenBench: Evaluating Image Generation Models as Interactive GUI Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.09007/) (2026)
- [AgenticRAGTracer: A Hop-Aware Benchmark for Diagnosing Multi-Step Retrieval Reasoning in Agentic RAG](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.19127/) (2026)
- [Video Understanding: From Geometry and Semantics to Unified Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.17840/) (2026)
- [MME-CoF-Pro: Evaluating Reasoning Coherence in Video Generative Models with Text and Visual Hints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.20194/) (2026)
- [VLMs are Good Teachers for Video Reasoning via Adaptive Test-Time Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.02564/) (2026)
- [Beyond the Last Frame: Process-aware Evaluation for Generative Video Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.24952/) (2025)
- [LongVidSearch: An Agentic Benchmark for Multi-hop Evidence Retrieval Planning in Long Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.14468/) (2026)
- [Wan-R1: Verifiable-Reinforcement Learning for Video Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.27866/) (2026)
- [CollabVR: Collaborative Video Reasoning with Vision-Language and Video Generation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.08735/) (2026)
- [Research on World Models Is Not Merely Injecting World Knowledge into Specific Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.01630/) (2026)
- [V-Bridge: Bridging Video Generative Priors to Versatile Few-shot Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.13089/) (2026)
- [YoCausal: How Far is Video Generation from World Model? A Causality Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.30346/) (2026)
- [OpenCoF: Learning to Reason Through Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.08763/) (2026)
- [GRAN-TED: Generating Robust, Aligned, and Nuanced Text Embedding for Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.15560/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recent video generation models can produce high-fidelity, temporally coherent videos, indicating that they may encode substantial world knowledge. Beyond realistic synthesis, they also exhibit emerging behaviors indicative of visual perception, modeling, and manipulation. Yet, an important question still remains: Are video models ready to serve as zero-shot reasoners in challenging visual reasoning scenarios? In this work, we conduct an empirical study to comprehensively investigate this question, focusing on the leading and popular Veo-3. We evaluate its reasoning behavior across 12 dimensions, including spatial, geometric, physical, temporal, and embodied logic, systematically characterizing both its strengths and failure modes. To standardize this study, we curate the evaluation data into MME-CoF, a compact benchmark that enables in-depth and thorough assessment of Chain-of-Frame (CoF) reasoning. Our findings reveal that while current video models demonstrate promising reasoning patterns on short-horizon spatial coherence, fine-grained grounding, and locally consistent dynamics, they remain limited in long-horizon causal reasoning, strict geometric constraints, and abstract logic. Overall, they are not yet reliable as standalone zero-shot reasoners, but exhibit encouraging signs as complementary visual engines alongside dedicated reasoning models. Project page: https://video-cof.github.io