Mengdi Zhang

Zhihao Li, Yao Du, Yang Liu et al.

Multi-modal Large Language Models (MLLMs) have advanced greatly in general tasks. However, they still face challenges in geometric reasoning, a task that requires synergistic integration of visual recognition proficiency and complex reasoning strength. Existing MLLMs prioritize optimizing the LLM backbone to enhance problem-solving capabilities, while rarely emphasizing improvements in discerning visual elements. However, we reveal that MLLMs suffer from severe visual perception deficiencies, including inaccurate geometric comprehension and severe visual hallucinations, which constrain their reasoning performance. To address this issue, we revisit geometric reasoning through a visual-centric lens that highlights the role of visual perception. To achieve this, we propose EAGLE, a novel coarse-to-fine visual enhancement framework that progressively leverages LLMs' guidance to improve perception proficiency. Specifically, given the substantial disparity between geometric diagrams and natural images, we first introduce Geometric Knowledge Injection. This process explores fundamental knowledge from diagram-caption data to enhance recognition capabilities and improve geometry-language alignments. Then, recognizing that different elements contribute unequally in the reasoning process, we introduce Geometric Knowledge Refinement. This stage leverages LLM-driven chain-of-thought solutions to guide the vision encoder in adaptively prioritizing key elements, fostering a synergistic interplay between visual comprehension and mathematical reasoning. Finally, we develop EAGLE, a geometry expert with strong perception and reasoning capabilities. Extensive experiments demonstrate its effectiveness on three popular benchmarks.

Yufang Liu, Yao Du, Tao Ji et al.

Recent research has increasingly focused on multimodal mathematical reasoning, particularly emphasizing the creation of relevant datasets and benchmarks. Despite this, the role of visual information in reasoning has been underexplored. Our findings show that existing multimodal mathematical models minimally leverage visual information, and model performance remains largely unaffected by changes to or removal of images in the dataset. We attribute this to the dominance of textual information and answer options that inadvertently guide the model to correct answers. To improve evaluation methods, we introduce the HC-M3D dataset, specifically designed to require image reliance for problem-solving and to challenge models with similar, yet distinct, images that change the correct answer. In testing leading models, their failure to detect these subtle visual differences suggests limitations in current visual perception capabilities. Additionally, we observe that the common approach of improving general VQA capabilities by combining various types of image encoders does not contribute to math reasoning performance. This finding also presents a challenge to enhancing visual reliance during math reasoning. Our benchmark and code would be available at \href{https://github.com/Yufang-Liu/visual_modality_role}{https://github.com/Yufang-Liu/visual\_modality\_role}.

Zhe Liu, Anbang Xu, Mengdi Zhang et al.

One problem that every presenter faces when delivering a public discourse is how to hold the listeners' attentions or to keep them involved. Therefore, many studies in conversation analysis work on this issue and suggest qualitatively con-structions that can effectively lead to audience's applause. To investigate these proposals quantitatively, in this study we an-alyze the transcripts of 2,135 TED Talks, with a particular fo-cus on the rhetorical devices that are used by the presenters for applause elicitation. Through conducting regression anal-ysis, we identify and interpret 24 rhetorical devices as triggers of audience applauding. We further build models that can rec-ognize applause-evoking sentences and conclude this work with potential implications.