---
license: apache-2.0
task_categories:
- visual-question-answering
- image-to-text
language:
- en
tags:
- benchmark
- vision
- reasoning
- multimodal
- evaluation
pretty_name: VisRes-Bench
dataset_info:
- config_name: level_1_global_occlusion_50
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 1000
- config_name: level_1_global_occlusion_70
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 1000
- config_name: level_1_global_occlusion_80
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 1000
- config_name: level_1_edges
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 1000
- config_name: level_1_location_random_sampling
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 1000
- config_name: level_1_brightness
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 1000
- config_name: level_1_blur
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 1000
- config_name: level_1_rotation
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 1000
- config_name: level_1_rotation_random_sampling
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 1000
- config_name: level_1_edges_random_sampling
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 1000
- config_name: level_1_location
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 1000
- config_name: level_2_uniform_count
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 500
- config_name: level_2_count_progression
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 500
- config_name: level_2_uniform_orientation
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 458
- config_name: level_2_count_2_same_1_diff
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 500
- config_name: level_2_orientation_2same_1diff
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 498
- config_name: level_2_uniform_color
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 500
- config_name: level_2_count_arithmetic
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 500
- config_name: level_2_count_minmax
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 500
- config_name: level_2_orientation_3_diff
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 500
- config_name: level_2_color_2same_1diff
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 500
- config_name: level_2_color_3_diff
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 500
- config_name: level_2_count_3_diff
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 500
- config_name: level_3_spiral_color_orientation
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 350
- config_name: level_3_spiral_color_orientation
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 464
- config_name: level_3_coupled_color_count
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 500
- config_name: level_3_independent_color_object_orientation
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 355
- config_name: level_3_coupled_color_orientation
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 374
- config_name: level_3_Independent_count_object_color
features:
- name: id
dtype: string
- name: task
dtype: string
- name: level
dtype: string
- name: guided_question
dtype: string
- name: generic_question
dtype: string
- name: images
sequence: image
- name: question
dtype: string
- name: answer
dtype: string
splits:
- name: test
num_examples: 479
configs:
- config_name: level_1_global_occlusion_50
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_1_global_occlusion_50percent/test-*
- config_name: level_1_global_occlusion_70
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_1_global_occlusion_70percent/test-*
- config_name: level_1_global_occlusion_80
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_1_global_occlusion_80percent/test-*
- config_name: level_1_edges
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_1_edges_eval_6k_location_only_dino_mode_options/test-*
- config_name: level_1_location_random_sampling
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_1_eval_6k_location_only_random_sampling/test-*
- config_name: level_1_brightness
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_1_eval_6k_brightness_dino_options/test-*
- config_name: level_1_blur
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_1_eval_6k_blur_dino_options/test-*
- config_name: level_1_rotation
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_1_eval_6k_rotation_direct_dino_options/test-*
- config_name: level_1_rotation_random_sampling
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_1_eval_6k_single_rotation_same_options/test-*
- config_name: level_1_edges_random_sampling
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_1_edges_eval_6k_location_only_random_sampling/test-*
- config_name: level_1_location
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_1_eval_6k_location_only_dino_mode_options/test-*
- config_name: level_2_uniform_count
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_2_count_only/test-*
- config_name: level_2_count_progression
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_2_count_progression_mixed/test-*
- config_name: level_2_uniform_orientation
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_2_orientation_only/test-*
- config_name: level_2_count_2_same_1_diff
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_2_count_distribution_2same_1diff/test-*
- config_name: level_2_orientation_2same_1diff
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_2_orientation_distribution_2same_1diff/test-*
- config_name: level_2_uniform_color
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_2_color_only/test-*
- config_name: level_2_count_arithmetic
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_2_count_operations/test-*
- config_name: level_2_count_minmax
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_2_count_minmax/test-*
- config_name: level_2_orientation_3_diff
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_2_orientation_distribution/test-*
- config_name: level_2_color_2same_1diff
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_2_color_distribution_2same_1diff/test-*
- config_name: level_2_color_3_diff
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_2_color_distribution/test-*
- config_name: level_2_count_3_diff
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_2_count_distribution/test-*
- config_name: level_3_spiral_color_orientation
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_3_compositional_spiral_orientation/test-*
- config_name: level_3_spiral_color_orientation
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_3_compositional_spiral_object_color/test-*
- config_name: level_3_coupled_color_count
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_3_coupled_count_color/test-*
- config_name: level_3_independent_color_object_rientation
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_3_independent_color_object_orientation/test-*
- config_name: level_3_coupled_color_orientation
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_3_coupled_orientation_color/test-*
- config_name: level_3_Independent_count_object_color
data_files:
- split: test
path: level_3_independent_distribution_arithmetic_object/test-*
---
# VisRes Bench
[](https://visres-bench.github.io/) [](https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.21194)
**VisRes Bench** is a benchmark for evaluating the **visual reasoning** capabilities of Vision-Language Models (VLMs) in naturalistic settings without contextual language supervision. It is introduced in the paper [*VisRes Bench: On Evaluating the Visual Reasoning Capabilities of VLMs*](https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.21194).
## Paper Summary
Vision-Language Models excel at captioning and VQA, but it is unclear how much they rely on **visual reasoning** versus **linguistic priors**. VisRes addresses this by using **image-only, four-choice** tasks on **real-world images** (~19,000 samples) so that performance reflects visual reasoning rather than textual shortcuts.
The benchmark is organized in **three levels** of increasing complexity:
- **Level 1 — Perceptual grounding:** Local patch completion (masked tile + 4 candidate patches) under perturbations (blur, brightness, rotation, edges, location) and global occlusion (50% or 80% of the image masked). Tests robustness and amodal completion.
- **Level 2 — Single-attribute rule:** Raven-style 3×3 grids with one missing cell; one attribute (color, count, or orientation) follows a row-wise rule. Includes uniform, 3-different, 2-similar-1-different, count progression, arithmetic, and min-max subtasks (~5,956 samples).
- **Level 3 — Multi-attribute composition:** Same 3×3 format but multiple attributes (color, count, orientation, object identity) with row-wise, grid-wise, or spiral rules (~2,522 samples).
**Main findings:** State-of-the-art VLMs perform near **random (25%)** on many subtasks under subtle perceptual changes. Performance is stronger on color than count, and weakest on orientation. When the same logical structure is given as **text**, models do much better, indicating a **visual-to-symbolic** bottleneck rather than a pure reasoning limit. Higher resolution and guided/thinking prompts help but do not close the gap to human baselines.
---
## Main Results (Guided Prompting, Thinking Mode When Available)
Accuracy (%) across levels and subtasks. Random chance = 25%.
| Setting |
GPT-5 |
GPT-4o |
Gemini-2.5 |
Qwen3-VL-4B |
Qwen3-VL-30B |
Mimo-VL-7B |
| Level-1 |
| Edges | 27.17 | 23.91 | 25.00 | 16.67 | 25.00 | 22.30 |
| Location | 23.71 | 20.62 | 26.00 | 23.16 | 22.40 | 25.77 |
| Rotation | 35.42 | 26.04 | 34.38 | 37.50 | 36.05 | 29.17 |
| Brightness | 25.26 | 27.37 | 27.37 | 31.52 | 29.47 | 27.37 |
| Blur | 31.18 | 25.26 | 26.32 | 24.73 | 24.28 | 26.32 |
| Global@50% | 42.86 | 20.88 | 57.14 | 37.50 | 47.25 | 48.35 |
| Global@80% | 32.61 | 22.83 | 36.96 | 25.88 | 35.87 | 30.43 |
| Level-1 Average | 31.10 | 23.86 | 33.28 | 28.17 | 31.20 | 29.22 |
| Level-2 |
| Uniform Color | 96.00 | 21.00 | 97.00 | 66.20 | 88.00 | 78.95 |
| Uniform Count | 61.00 | 25.00 | 90.91 | 40.82 | 59.00 | 52.75 |
| Uniform Orientation | 22.22 | 25.25 | 26.53 | 26.00 | 23.00 | 19.19 |
| Count Progression | 50.00 | 13.00 | 77.00 | 37.20 | 48.00 | 36.96 |
| Count Arithmetic | 52.00 | 22.00 | 75.76 | 43.20 | 49.00 | 33.33 |
| Level-2 Average | 49.79 | 24.12 | 62.29 | 37.18 | 46.75 | 39.15 |
| Level-3 |
| Independent Color-Object-Orientation | 34.00 | 25.25 | 38.00 | 27.39 | 32.60 | 19.00 |
| Independent Count-Object-Color | 34.00 | 24.00 | 44.00 | 29.45 | 36.34 | 29.00 |
| Coupled Color-Orientation | 24.24 | 24.00 | 16.33 | 26.13 | 29.43 | 20.00 |
| Coupled Color-Count | 30.00 | 22.00 | 21.21 | 27.46 | 33.33 | 28.00 |
| Spiral Color-Count-Object | 56.00 | 30.00 | 54.17 | 28.63 | 36.00 | 33.00 |
| Level-3 Average | 34.39 | 23.86 | 33.73 | 26.31 | 31.36 | 25.17 |
---
## Finetuning on Level-1 (Qwen2.5-VL-3B)
| Setting |
Original |
Finetuned |
Human Baseline |
| Location | 24.3 | 42.8 | 94.1 |
| Blur | 23.9 | 37.5 | 84.3 |
| Brightness | 23.7 | 39.8 | 85.6 |
| Rotation | 25.5 | 50.8 | 92.0 |
| Edges | 25.1 | 33.2 | 82.6 |
| Global (50%) | 24.9 | 52.2 | 96.1 |
| Global (80%) | 23.9 | 38.6 | 98.0 |
| Average | 24.5 | 43.7 | 90.4 |
---
## Single-Attribute Recognition (Perceptual Grounding)
Accuracy (%) when models are asked to report a single attribute (color, orientation, or count) for one grid cell.
| Attribute |
GPT-4o |
GPT-5 |
| Color | 84.6 | 97.6 |
| Orientation | 39.8 | 49.6 |
| Count | 72.4 | 94.2 |
---
## Impact of Thinking Mode
Accuracy (%) with thinking mode enabled (✓) vs disabled (✗). Open-source models improve substantially with thinking.
| Level |
GPT-5 (high) |
GPT-5 (low) |
Mimo-VL ✓ |
Mimo-VL ✗ |
Qwen3-4B ✓ |
Qwen3-4B ✗ |
Qwen3-30B ✓ |
Qwen3-30B ✗ |
| Level-1 | 32.61 | 31.43 | 29.22 | 23.91 | 28.17 | 23.16 | 31.20 | 23.60 |
| Level-2 | 49.79 | 47.01 | 39.15 | 26.68 | 37.18 | 24.08 | 46.75 | 28.25 |
| Level-3 | 34.39 | 32.89 | 25.17 | 25.23 | 26.31 | 23.50 | 31.36 | 24.00 |
---
## Impact of Image Resolution (GPT-5)
Accuracy (%) at different input resolutions. All levels improve with higher resolution.
| Resolution |
Level-1 |
Level-2 |
Level-3 |
| 512×512 | 45.17 | 42.83 | 31.63 |
| 1024×1024 | 54.01 | 49.61 | 35.48 |
| 2048×2048 | 56.51 | 48.99 | 40.07 |
---
## Citation
```bibtex
@article{visres2025,
title={VisRes Bench: On Evaluating the Visual Reasoning Capabilities of VLMs},
author={Malagurski T{\"o}rtei, Brigitta and Dahou, Yasser and Huynh, Ngoc Dung and others},
journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.21194},
year={2025}
}
```