Cross-Modal Consistency in Multimodal Large Language Models

Recent developments in multimodal methodologies have marked the beginning of an exciting era for models adept at processing diverse data types, encompassing text, audio, and visual content. Models like GPT-4V, which merge computer vision with advanced language processing, exhibit extraordinary proficiency in handling intricate tasks that require a simultaneous understanding of both textual and visual information. Prior research efforts have meticulously evaluated the efficacy of these Vision Large Language Models (VLLMs) in various domains, including object detection, image captioning, and other related fields. However, existing analyses have often suffered from limitations, primarily centering on the isolated evaluation of each modality's performance while neglecting to explore their intricate cross-modal interactions. Specifically, the question of whether these models achieve the same level of accuracy when confronted with identical task instances across different modalities remains unanswered. In this study, we take the initiative to delve into the interaction and comparison among these modalities of interest by introducing a novel concept termed cross-modal consistency. Furthermore, we propose a quantitative evaluation framework founded on this concept. Our experimental findings, drawn from a curated collection of parallel vision-language datasets developed by us, unveil a pronounced inconsistency between the vision and language modalities within GPT-4V, despite its portrayal as a unified multimodal model. Our research yields insights into the appropriate utilization of such models and hints at potential avenues for enhancing their design.

Lost in Translation: When GPT-4V Can't See Eye to Eye with Text. A Vision-Language-Consistency Analysis of VLLMs and Beyond

Recent advancements in multimodal techniques open exciting possibilities for models excelling in diverse tasks involving text, audio, and image processing. Models like GPT-4V, blending computer vision and language modeling, excel in complex text and image tasks. Numerous prior research endeavors have diligently examined the performance of these Vision Large Language Models (VLLMs) across tasks like object detection, image captioning and others. However, these analyses often focus on evaluating the performance of each modality in isolation, lacking insights into their cross-modal interactions. Specifically, questions concerning whether these vision-language models execute vision and language tasks consistently or independently have remained unanswered. In this study, we draw inspiration from recent investigations into multilingualism and conduct a comprehensive analysis of model's cross-modal interactions. We introduce a systematic framework that quantifies the capability disparities between different modalities in the multi-modal setting and provide a set of datasets designed for these evaluations. Our findings reveal that models like GPT-4V tend to perform consistently modalities when the tasks are relatively simple. However, the trustworthiness of results derived from the vision modality diminishes as the tasks become more challenging. Expanding on our findings, we introduce "Vision Description Prompting," a method that effectively improves performance in challenging vision-related tasks.

Don't Trust GPT When Your Question Is Not In English

Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated exceptional natural language understanding abilities and have excelled in a variety of natural language processing (NLP)tasks in recent years. Despite the fact that most LLMs are trained predominantly in English, multiple studies have demonstrated their comparative performance in many other languages. However, fundamental questions persist regarding how LLMs acquire their multi-lingual abilities and how performance varies across different languages. These inquiries are crucial for the study of LLMs since users and researchers often come from diverse language backgrounds, potentially influencing their utilization and interpretation of LLMs' results. In this work, we propose a systematic way of qualifying the performance disparities of LLMs under multilingual settings. We investigate the phenomenon of across-language generalizations in LLMs, wherein insufficient multi-lingual training data leads to advanced multi-lingual capabilities. To accomplish this, we employ a novel back-translation-based prompting method. The results show that GPT exhibits highly translating-like behaviour in multilingual settings.