ReTAC: Residual Test-Time Agentic Computation for Video Spatial Reasoning
Organizations: Nanyang Technological University · Xiaohongshu Inc. · Zhejiang University of Technology · University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Abstract
Test-time agentic computation can improve multimodal large language models (MLLMs) through planning, tool use, iterative perception, and reflection, but indiscriminate computation may duplicate resolved work, introduce noisy evidence, and perturb correct predictions. We propose that such computation should be residual: allocate additional computation only to requirements unresolved by the base model and, after a localized failure, recompute only the affected states. We instantiate this formulation in ReTAC, a training-free multiagent framework for video spatial reasoning. ReTAC organizes supplementary computation around unresolved requirements. It plans ordered steps to acquire missing spatial evidence and combines the observations with compatible native evidence for reasoning. In addition, it uses stage-aligned verification to localize failures to planning, perception, or reasoning. Dependency-based recovery recomputes only affected states while reusing unaffected ones. Extensive experiments show that ReTAC achieves the highest overall score among the compared methods across three mainstream MLLMs and two widely adopted benchmarks. Further analyses show that gains from additional computation depend not only on how much is used, but also on where it is allocated and which valid intermediate states are preserved.
Figures & tables
| Base | Method | Numerical (MRA, %) | Multiple Choice (Acc., %) | Avg. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Count | Abs.D | Obj.S | Room | Rel.Dir | Rel.D | Order | Route | |||
| Qwen3 VL 8B | Direct | 44.82 (+8.37) | 39.75 (+3.80) | 59.24 (+2.37) | 58.60 (-1.30) | 41.67 (+13.59) | 49.35 (+5.49) | 60.38 (+8.49) | 28.07 (+5.26) | 47.73 (+5.76) |
| CoT | 45.12 (+8.07) | 39.63 (+3.92) | 59.15 (+2.46) | 58.32 (-1.02) | 43.23 (+12.03) | 50.96 (+3.88) | 61.95 (+6.92) | 30.41 (+2.92) | 48.59 (+4.90) | |
| S&T | 43.55 (+9.64) | 39.98 (+3.57) | 62.04 (-0.43) | 55.55 (+1.75) | 37.20 (+18.06) | 55.16 (-0.32) | 66.35 (+2.52) | 26.32 (+7.01) | 48.27 (+5.22) | |
| Think3D | 44.86 (+8.33) | 39.82 (+3.73) | 60.14 (+1.47) | 58.75 (-1.45) | 42.56 (+12.70) | 52.37 (+2.47) | 61.85 (+7.02) | 31.58 (+1.75) | 48.99 (+4.50) | |
| ReTAC | 53.19 | 43.55 | 61.61 | 57.30 | 55.26 | 54.84 | 68.87 | 33.33 | 53.49 | |
| Base | Method | Static Understanding | Dynamic Understanding | Avg. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DM | SR | VG | DPL | SA | EO | TD | PE | |||
| Qwen3 VL 8B | Direct | 29.76 (-0.23) | 47.26 (+4.79) | 39.75 (+4.73) | 19.83 (+9.50) | 38.37 (+3.62) | 57.84 (+5.94) | 39.74 (+20.52) | 57.22 (+0.28) | 39.87 (+4.63) |
| CoT | 30.10 (-0.57) | 48.63 (+3.42) | 40.06 (+4.42) | 23.46 (+5.87) | 39.88 (+2.11) | 58.92 (+4.86) | 46.15 (+14.11) | 56.94 (+0.56) | 41.23 (+3.27) | |
| S&T | 29.76 (-0.23) | 47.03 (+5.02) | 37.85 (+6.63) | 23.18 (+6.15) | 37.16 (+4.83) | 62.16 (+1.62) | 44.45 (+15.81) | 55.83 (+1.67) | 40.28 (+4.22) | |
| Think3D | 34.95 (-5.42) | 50.00 (+2.05) | 38.17 (+6.31) | 28.59 (+0.74) | 35.04 (+6.95) | 56.76 (+7.02) | 42.31 (+17.95) | 53.42 (+4.08) | 40.87 (+3.63) | |
| ReTAC | 29.53 | 52.05 | 44.48 | 29.33 | 41.99 | 63.78 | 60.26 | 57.50 | 44.50 | |
| Base | Method | Numerical (MRA, %) | Multiple Choice (Acc., %) | Avg. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Count | Abs.D | Obj.S | Room | Rel.Dir | Rel.D | Order | Route | |||
| Qwen3 VL 8B | ReTAC | 53.19 | 43.55 | 61.61 | 57.30 | 55.26 | 54.84 | 68.87 | 33.33 | 53.49 |
| Gen. Plan. | 51.69 (-1.50) | 41.16 (-2.39) | 60.89 (-0.72) | 57.92 (+0.62) | 52.58 (-2.68) | 49.78 (-5.06) | 65.41 (-3.46) | 31.58 (-1.75) | 51.37 (-2.12) | |
| Gen. Refl. | 52.43 (-0.76) | 42.39 (-1.16) | 61.54 (-0.07) | 56.13 (-1.17) | 53.23 (-2.03) | 52.36 (-2.48) | 64.78 (-4.09) | 29.82 (-3.51) | 51.58 (-1.91) | |
| GPT-5.5 | ReTAC | 49.96 | 44.93 | 65.71 | 58.40 | 69.56 | 68.17 | 73.58 | 68.72 | 62.38 |
| Gen. Plan. | 49.53 (-0.43) | 44.24 (-0.69) | 64.13 (-1.58) | 58.20 (-0.20) | 67.92 (-1.64) | 67.10 (-1.07) | 72.33 (-1.25) | 66.67 (-2.05) | 61.27 (-1.11) | |
Test-Time Scaling for VLMs
Test-time scaling for vision-language models studies how extra inference-time computation can improve visual understanding and reasoning.
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