Visual Grounding in Zero-Shot Vision-Language Control
Vision-language models (VLMs) are increasingly used as zero-shot controllers, but successful trajectories do not necessarily show that decisions are grounded in visual input: simulator dynamics and conservative action priors can produce favourable scores without meaningful perception. We investigate this with an input-ablation battery: blind-image controls, repeated identical inputs, lane-axis reflection, non-visual baselines, and pipeline-integrity checks. Across nine direct-action models, six structured local VLMs, and an exploratory VLM-MPC hierarchy, we analyse 32,874 scored calls over two embodiments and three simulators. The direct-control results are largely negative: a constant-SL...
| Authors | J. de Curtò, Dayani Plasencia, Diego Sánchez et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.RO |
| Published | 6 August 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 6 August 2026 |
Silytics shows public metadata from arXiv and links to the original. Information may be incomplete or out of date. Last refreshed 17 October 2026. Licenses and terms of the original apply to the work itself. Not financial, legal or professional advice.