# Spatial Reasoning in Multimodal Large Language Models: A Survey of Tasks, Benchmarks and Methods

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.15722 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.15722/

## Key facts

- Cited by 23 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Spatial and embodied reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 74 of its 140 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 Nov 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Spatial and embodied reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/lr/spatial-and-embodied-reasoning/)
- Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models / [Embodied and 3D vision-language models](https://mlsanity.com/mllm/embodied-and-3d-vision-language-models/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 74)

- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1405.0312/) (2014)
- [Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.06347/) (2017)
- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11903/) (2022)
- [Swin Transformer: Hierarchical Vision Transformer using Shifted Windows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14030/) (2021)
- [Visual Instruction Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08485/) (2023)
- [DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.12948/) (2025)
- [Flamingo: a Visual Language Model for Few-Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.14198/) (2022)
- [Qwen2-VL: Enhancing Vision-Language Model's Perception of the World at Any Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.12191/) (2024)
- [A ConvNet for the 2020s](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.03545/) (2022)
- [ScanNet: Richly-annotated 3D Reconstructions of Indoor Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.04405/) (2017)
- [LLaVA-OneVision: Easy Visual Task Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.03326/) (2024)
- [VQA: Visual Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.00468/) (2015)
- [Expanding Performance Boundaries of Open-Source Multimodal Models with Model, Data, and Test-Time Scaling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.05271/) (2024)
- [Perceiver: General Perception with Iterative Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.03206/) (2021)
- [Thinking in Space: How Multimodal Large Language Models See, Remember, and Recall Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.14171/) (2024)
- [LLMs-as-Judges: A Comprehensive Survey on LLM-based Evaluation Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.05579/) (2024)
- [ProcTHOR: Large-Scale Embodied AI Using Procedural Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.06994/) (2022)
- [GPTScore: Evaluate as You Desire](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.04166/) (2023)
- [Towards AI-Complete Question Answering: A Set of Prerequisite Toy Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.05698/) (2015)
- [Pixel Reasoner: Incentivizing Pixel-Space Reasoning with Curiosity-Driven Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.15966/) (2025)
- [NuScenes-QA: A Multi-modal Visual Question Answering Benchmark for Autonomous Driving Scenario](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14836/) (2023)
- [Spatial-MLLM: Boosting MLLM Capabilities in Visual-based Spatial Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.23747/) (2025)
- [STAR: A Benchmark for Situated Reasoning in Real-World Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.09711/) (2024)
- [Imagine while Reasoning in Space: Multimodal Visualization-of-Thought](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.07542/) (2025)
- [Point-Bind & Point-LLM: Aligning Point Cloud with Multi-modality for 3D Understanding, Generation, and Instruction Following](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.00615/) (2023)
- [LLaVA-3D: A Simple yet Effective Pathway to Empowering LMMs with 3D-awareness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.18125/) (2024)
- [Scene-LLM: Extending Language Model for 3D Visual Understanding and Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11401/) (2024)
- [Text2Shape: Generating Shapes from Natural Language by Learning Joint Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.08495/) (2018)

## Built on by (most cited first, 23 of 23)

- [SpatialTree: How Spatial Abilities Branch Out in MLLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.20617/) (2025)
- [SpatialWorld: Benchmarking Interactive Spatial Reasoning of Multimodal Agents in Real-World Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.09669/) (2026)
- [SpaMEM: Benchmarking Dynamic Spatial Reasoning via Perception-Memory Integration in Embodied Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.22409/) (2026)
- [PanoWorld: Towards Spatial Supersensing in 360^circ Panorama World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.13169/) (2026)
- [ViSRA: A Video-based Spatial Reasoning Agent for Multi-modal Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.10106/) (2026)
- [CRAFT: Grounded Multi-Agent Coordination Under Partial Information](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.25268/) (2026)
- [EAGOR: Embodied Reasoning in Omni-direction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.06165/) (2026)
- [ArchSIBench: Benchmarking the Architectural Spatial Intelligence of Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.20837/) (2026)
- [Predicting Camera Pose from Perspective Descriptions for Spatial Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.06041/) (2026)
- [Uncovering and Shaping the Latent Representation of 3D Scene Topology in Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.07148/) (2026)
- [MPDocBench-Parse: Benchmarking Practical Multi-page Document Parsing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.22100/) (2026)
- [SpatialAct: Probing Spatial Reasoning-to-Action Capabilities of VLM Agents in 3D Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.31148/) (2026)
- [Ouroboros-Spatial: Closing the Data-Model Loop for Spatial Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.11719/) (2026)
- [Spatial Reasoning via Modality Switching Between Language and Symbolic Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.31285/) (2026)
- [ViTaB-A: Evaluating Multimodal Large Language Models on Visual Table Attribution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.15769/) (2026)
- [VGenST-Bench: A Benchmark for Spatio-Temporal Reasoning via Active Video Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.22570/) (2026)
- [SSR3D-LLM: Structured Spatial Reasoning via Latent Steps for Fine-Grained Grounding in Unified 3D-LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.28490/) (2026)
- [Evaluation of Multilingual Ability to Use Spatial Deictic Expressions in Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.07251/) (2026)
- [Blind-Spots-Bench: Evaluating Blind Spots in Multimodal Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.08317/) (2026)
- [A Statistical Audit of Physical AI Benchmark Redundancy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.25940/) (2026)
- [SpatialSkill: Self-Evolving Skills for Cross-View Spatial Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.34124/) (2026)
- [Explicit Geometric Chain-of-Thought for Vision-Language-Action in Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.10390/) (2026)
- [Towards a Data-Centric Understanding of Spatial Reasoning in Multimodal Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.19108/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Spatial reasoning, which requires ability to perceive and manipulate spatial relationships in the 3D world, is a fundamental aspect of human intelligence, yet remains a persistent challenge for Multimodal large language models (MLLMs). While existing surveys often categorize recent progress based on input modality (e.g., text, image, video, or 3D), we argue that spatial ability is not solely determined by the input format. Instead, our survey introduces a taxonomy that organizes spatial intelligence from cognitive aspect and divides tasks in terms of reasoning complexity, linking them to several cognitive functions. We map existing benchmarks across text only, vision language, and embodied settings onto this taxonomy, and review evaluation metrics and methodologies for assessing spatial reasoning ability. This cognitive perspective enables more principled cross-task comparisons and reveals critical gaps between current model capabilities and human-like reasoning. In addition, we analyze methods for improving spatial ability, spanning both training-based and reasoning-based approaches. This dual perspective analysis clarifies their respective strengths, uncovers complementary mechanisms. By surveying tasks, benchmarks, and recent advances, we aim to provide new researchers with a comprehensive understanding of the field and actionable directions for future research.