RL for VLMs

RL: Reinforcement Learning · VLM: Vision-Language Model

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36 papers in the last four weeks, up 227% on the four weeks before. 0.4% of all new papers.

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Latest papers 287

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Bridging Physical Reasoning and Task Generalization via Visual Action Outcome Reasoning Alignment
Jul 7, 2026Han-Jun Ko, Jr-Jen Chen, Haobo Yuan +4Physical Reasoning VLM Reasoning
National Taiwan University · The University of California, Merced
Scene Graph Thinking: Reinforcing Structured Visual Reasoning for Multimodal Large Language Models
Jul 7, 2026Zhiwei Yang, Yuanchen Wu, Nan Zhang +3Multimodal Large Language Models Multimodal CoT Reasoning
Tencent Youtu Lab, Shanghai, China · Fudan University, Shanghai, China
TimeThink: Reasoning with Time for Video LLMs
Jul 6, 2026Handong Li, Longteng Guo, Zikang Liu +8Temporal Video Grounding Process Reward Models
School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences · Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences · OPPO AI Center, OPPO Inc.
VLA Grounder: Language-Conditioning Space Optimization for Black-Box VLA Models
Jul 5, 2026Damir Shodiev, Nikita Kachaev, Alexey K. Kovalev +2Language-Conditioned Robot Manipulation Vision-Language-Action Models
MIRAI · AXXX · MISIS
CritiqueDriveVLM: From Verifier-Guided Reinforcement Learning to Latent Thought Distillation for Autonomous Driving
Jul 5, 2026Zhaohong Liu, Hao Ye, Xianlin Zhang +1VLMs for Autonomous Driving Efficient VLM Inference
State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology · Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, China · School of Digital Media & Design Arts
Bridging Interleaved Multi-Modal Reasoning as a Unified Decision Process
Jul 4, 2026Zican Hu, Xuyang Hu, Yiming Liu +10Unified Multimodal Models Multimodal Reasoning
Nanjing University · Shanghai AI Laboratory · Tsinghua University +5
Incentivizing Vision Language Models to Search for Long Video Question Answering
Jul 3, 2026Harsh Goel, S P Sharan, Sahil Shah +4Tool Use in VLMs Long-Video QA
The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA
VideoSearcher: Empowering Video Deep Research with Multi-Tool Agentic Reasoning via Reinforcement Learning
Jul 3, 2026Zhenkun Gao, Yicheng Bao, Jinlong Peng +13Multimodal RAG Video QA
East China Normal University · Tencent Youtu Lab · HFIPS, Chinese Academy of Sciences +3
Visually Grounded Self-Reflection for Vision-Language Models via Reinforcement Learning
Jul 2, 2026Liyan Tang, Fangcong Yin, Greg DurrettVLM Robustness Vision-Language Models
The University of Texas at Austin · New York University
Guided Action Flow: Value-Guided Sampling for Frozen Vision-Language-Action Policies
Jul 2, 2026Liuhaichen Yang, Zhuang Jiang, Chenchao Sheng +8Robotic Manipulation Vision-Language-Action Models
Department of Computer Science, University College London. · Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London.
LASER: A Corrective Lens for LVLMs via Visual Attention Preservation and Sink Suppression
Jul 2, 2026Bowen Yuan, Zijian Wang, Yadan Luo +2Vision-Language Models Large Vision-Language Models
The University of Queensland
Perceive-to-Reason: Decoupling Perception and Reasoning for Fine-Grained Visual Reasoning
Jul 1, 2026Hongxing Li, Xiufeng Huang, Dingming Li +11Visual Reasoning VLM Reasoning
1Zhejiang University · 2Alibaba Group
Z-1: Efficient Reinforcement Learning for Vision-Language-Action Models
Jun 30, 2026Lang Cao, Renhong Chen, Luyi Li +3Robot Skill Learning Efficient VLA Models
Zioneer Robot Team
Breaking Failure Cascades: Step-Aware Reinforcement Learning for Medical Multimodal Reasoning
Jun 30, 2026Junha Jung, Minbyul Jeong, Suhyeon Lim +5Process Reward Models Medical VQA
Korea University · AIGEN Sciences · Upstage AI +3
Token-Sparse Medical Multimodal Reasoning via Dual-Stream Reinforcement Learning
Jun 30, 2026Kaitao Chen, Weiqian Zhao, Jiamin Wu +6Efficient Multimodal Inference Medical VQA
1Fudan University · 2Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory · 3Shanghai Jiao Tong University +1
Be Faithful When Response: Returning Fluent and Grounded Answers for Vision-Language Models Reinforcement Learning
Jun 29, 2026Peng, Lee, Yin Zhang +9Vision-Language Grounding VLM Reasoning
GMLab · Hong Kong Polytechnic University · XPENG Robotics
H-GRPO: Permutation-Invariant Reinforcement Learning for Grounded Visual Reasoning
Jun 29, 2026Eric Peh, Debaditya Roy, Basura FernandoReinforcement Learning Visual Reasoning
Institute of High-Performance Computing, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore · Centre for Frontier AI Research, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore · Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India +1
StrucTab: A Structured Optimization Framework for Table Parsing
Jun 29, 2026Gengluo Li, Shangpin Peng, Chengquan Zhang +10Table Structure Recognition VLM Reasoning
Institute of Information Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China · School of Cyber Security, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China · LLM Department, Tencent, China +3
Personalizing MLLMs via Reinforced Multimodal Reference Game
Jun 27, 2026Deepayan Das, Davide Talon, Yiming Wang +2Multimodal Large Language Models Personalized Language Models
University of Trento, Trento, Italy · Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy
Reflect-R1: Evidence-Driven Reflection for Self-Correction in Long Video Understanding
Jun 26, 2026Shuimu Chen, Yuteng Chen, Yuanshen Guan +7LLM Self-Correction Long-Video Understanding
Tsinghua University · Nanyang Technological University · University of Science and Technology of China +4
LocalNav: Distilling Frontier VLMs and Embodied RL for On-Device Object Goal Navigation
Jun 26, 2026Nicolas Baumann, Liam Boyle, Pu Deng +5Efficient VLM Inference VLM Distillation
Center for Project-Based Learning, 2Integrated Systems Laboratory, 3Computer Vision and Geometry ETH Zurich
Staying VIGILant: Mitigating Visual Laziness via Counterfactual Visual Alignment in MLLMs
Jun 24, 2026Xi Xiao, Chen Liu, Chih-Ting Liao +9Multimodal Large Language Models Visual Grounding
UAB · Yale · UNSW +6
Teach-to-Reason: Competition-Guided Reasoning with a Self-Improving Teacher
Jun 24, 2026Xiao Han, Hao Liu, Zhimin Bao +5Medical VQA Medical VLMs
1AIRC, Midea Group
Omni-Perception Policy Optimization for Multimodal Emotion Reasoning
Jun 24, 2026Zhiyuan Han, Beier Zhu, Wenwen Tong +6Multimodal Reasoning Multimodal Hallucination
University of Science and Technology of China · SenseTime · Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center +1
Geo-Strat-RL: Learning Geological Event Reasoning from Verifiable Tasks
Jun 23, 2026Lukas MosserVLM Reasoning Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards
Aker BP ASA
video-SALMONN-R $^3$ : Learning to ReWatch, ReAsk, and ReAnswer for Efficient Video Understanding
Jun 23, 2026Yixuan Li, Guangzhi Sun, Yudong Yang +1Efficient VLM Inference Video QA
Tsinghua University · University of Cambridge
E-MRL: Cross-view Aligned Evidence-driven Multimodal Reinforcement Learning for Reliable 3D Tumor Analysis
Jun 22, 2026Sijing Li, Zhongwei Qiu, Zhuoya Wang +6Medical Image Grounding VLM Hallucination Mitigation
Zhejiang University · DAMO Academy, Alibaba Group · Hupan Lab +3
AIR: Adaptive Interleaved Reasoning with Code in MLLMs
Jun 22, 2026Cong Han, Xiaohan Lan, Haibo Qiu +1Multimodal Large Language Models Mathematical Reasoning
1Independent Researcher.
dVLA-RL: Reinforcement Learning over Denoising Trajectories for Discrete Diffusion Vision-Language-Action Models
Jun 22, 2026Yuhao Wu, Yitian Liu, Weijie Shen +13Vision-Language-Action Models VLMs for Robotics
ScaleLab at SJTU · 1Shanghai Jiao Tong University · 3Baidu AI Cloud +3
Dense Reward for Multi-View 3D Reasoning with Global Maps and Local Views
Jun 22, 2026Jiho Choi, Seonho Lee, Seojeong Park +1Visual Question Answering Active Perception
Graduate School of Artificial Intelligence, KAIST, Republic of Korea · KRAFTON, Republic of Korea

Jul 7, 2026, cs.AIJ/K move · Enter open · S save

Bridging Physical Reasoning and Task Generalization via Visual Action Outcome Reasoning Alignment

Han-Jun Ko, Jr-Jen Chen, Haobo Yuan, Hsin-Ying Lee+3

National Taiwan University · The University of California, Merced

Physical Reasoning VLM Reasoning Visually Grounded Reasoning RL for VLMs Embodied Reasoning

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Vision-language models (VLMs) struggle to generalize in interactive physical reasoning, particularly under unseen tasks and environments. Two key failure modes are prominent: hallucinated chain-of-thought (CoT) reasoning that contradicts physical reality, and misalignment between the model's reasoning and actions. We present VAORA (Visual Action Outcome Reasoning Alignment), a novel reward design that directly addresses both issues. VAORA introduces two complementary rewards: Visual Alignment Reward, which anchors VLM reasoning to the visual context independent of the agent action itself, and Visual-Action Alignment Reward, which grounds reasoning in the visual outcome induced by the model's action. Together, these rewards suppress hallucinated CoT and reduce the gap between reasoning and behavior. To improve training stability, we further employ smooth, dense rewards by estimating success probabilities using a pre-trained in-domain expert agent. Experiments on PHYRE and Virtual Tool support our performances across novel-task and unseen-environment settings, confirming that grounded and generalizable physical intelligence can be induced through VAORA.

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