Reinforced MLLM: A Survey on RL-Based Reasoning in Multimodal Large Language Models

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhou, Guanghao, Qiu, Panjia, Chen, Cen, Wang, Jie, Yang, Zheming, Xu, Jian, Qiu, Minghui
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Zhou, Guanghao
Qiu, Panjia
Chen, Cen
Wang, Jie
Yang, Zheming
Xu, Jian
Qiu, Minghui
author_facet Zhou, Guanghao
Qiu, Panjia
Chen, Cen
Wang, Jie
Yang, Zheming
Xu, Jian
Qiu, Minghui
contents The application of reinforcement learning (RL) to enhance the reasoning capabilities of Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) constitutes a rapidly advancing research area. While MLLMs extend Large Language Models (LLMs) to handle diverse modalities such as vision, audio, and video, enabling robust reasoning across multimodal inputs remains challenging. This paper provides a systematic review of recent advances in RL-based reasoning for MLLMs, covering key algorithmic designs, reward mechanism innovations, and practical applications. We highlight two main RL paradigms, value-model-free and value-model-based methods, and analyze how RL enhances reasoning abilities by optimizing reasoning trajectories and aligning multimodal information. Additionally, we provide an extensive overview of benchmark datasets, evaluation protocols, and current limitations, and propose future research directions to address challenges such as sparse rewards, inefficient cross-modal reasoning, and real-world deployment constraints. Our goal is to provide a comprehensive and structured guide to RL-based multimodal reasoning.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_21277
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reinforced MLLM: A Survey on RL-Based Reasoning in Multimodal Large Language Models
Zhou, Guanghao
Qiu, Panjia
Chen, Cen
Wang, Jie
Yang, Zheming
Xu, Jian
Qiu, Minghui
Artificial Intelligence
The application of reinforcement learning (RL) to enhance the reasoning capabilities of Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) constitutes a rapidly advancing research area. While MLLMs extend Large Language Models (LLMs) to handle diverse modalities such as vision, audio, and video, enabling robust reasoning across multimodal inputs remains challenging. This paper provides a systematic review of recent advances in RL-based reasoning for MLLMs, covering key algorithmic designs, reward mechanism innovations, and practical applications. We highlight two main RL paradigms, value-model-free and value-model-based methods, and analyze how RL enhances reasoning abilities by optimizing reasoning trajectories and aligning multimodal information. Additionally, we provide an extensive overview of benchmark datasets, evaluation protocols, and current limitations, and propose future research directions to address challenges such as sparse rewards, inefficient cross-modal reasoning, and real-world deployment constraints. Our goal is to provide a comprehensive and structured guide to RL-based multimodal reasoning.
title Reinforced MLLM: A Survey on RL-Based Reasoning in Multimodal Large Language Models
topic Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.21277