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Main Authors: Yuan, Xiaoyu, Heikkala, Niklas, Törmänen, Tiina, Järvenoja, Hanna, Zhao, Guoying, Chen, Haoyu
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.09703
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author Yuan, Xiaoyu
Heikkala, Niklas
Törmänen, Tiina
Järvenoja, Hanna
Zhao, Guoying
Chen, Haoyu
author_facet Yuan, Xiaoyu
Heikkala, Niklas
Törmänen, Tiina
Järvenoja, Hanna
Zhao, Guoying
Chen, Haoyu
contents Understanding human mental states from natural behavior is crucial for intelligent systems in the real world. However, most current research focuses on predicting isolated mental state labels, lacking structured annotations of complex interpersonal interactions. To support structured analysis, we introduce MOTOR-Bench, a carefully-designed benchmark with a real-world dataset MOTOR-dataset, containing 1,440 multimodal video clips in collaborative learning scenarios, reflecting key real-world data challenges including natural class imbalance, visual noise, and domain-specific language. Each sample is labeled by educational experts based on self-regulated learning theory. We further evaluate several state-of-the-art multimodal large language models and multi-agent systems in a zero-shot setting on our MOTOR-Bench. However, their performance on this task remains limited, suggesting that existing methods still struggle with structured reasoning from observable behavior to deeper mental states. To address this challenge, we propose a reasoning multi-agent framework, named MOTOR-MAS. It coordinates multiple agents through a structured agent coordination mechanism to infer explicit behaviors, internal cognitions, and psychological emotions. Experimental results show that our MOTOR-MAS outperforms the best single-model benchmark by 15.93 points in Macro-F1 scores for the three labels of behavior, cognition, and emotion, and outperforms the general multi-agent benchmark by 10.2 points in internal cognition prediction.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_09703
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle MOTOR-Bench: A Real-world Dataset and Multi-agent Framework for Zero-shot Human Mental State Understanding
Yuan, Xiaoyu
Heikkala, Niklas
Törmänen, Tiina
Järvenoja, Hanna
Zhao, Guoying
Chen, Haoyu
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Understanding human mental states from natural behavior is crucial for intelligent systems in the real world. However, most current research focuses on predicting isolated mental state labels, lacking structured annotations of complex interpersonal interactions. To support structured analysis, we introduce MOTOR-Bench, a carefully-designed benchmark with a real-world dataset MOTOR-dataset, containing 1,440 multimodal video clips in collaborative learning scenarios, reflecting key real-world data challenges including natural class imbalance, visual noise, and domain-specific language. Each sample is labeled by educational experts based on self-regulated learning theory. We further evaluate several state-of-the-art multimodal large language models and multi-agent systems in a zero-shot setting on our MOTOR-Bench. However, their performance on this task remains limited, suggesting that existing methods still struggle with structured reasoning from observable behavior to deeper mental states. To address this challenge, we propose a reasoning multi-agent framework, named MOTOR-MAS. It coordinates multiple agents through a structured agent coordination mechanism to infer explicit behaviors, internal cognitions, and psychological emotions. Experimental results show that our MOTOR-MAS outperforms the best single-model benchmark by 15.93 points in Macro-F1 scores for the three labels of behavior, cognition, and emotion, and outperforms the general multi-agent benchmark by 10.2 points in internal cognition prediction.
title MOTOR-Bench: A Real-world Dataset and Multi-agent Framework for Zero-shot Human Mental State Understanding
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.09703