A Structured Framework for Evaluating and Enhancing Interpretive Capabilities of Multimodal LLMs in Culturally Situated Tasks

Haorui Yu, Ramon Ruiz-Dolz, Qiufeng Yi


Abstract
This study aims to test and evaluate the capabilities and characteristics of current mainstream Visual Language Models (VLMs) in generating critiques for traditional Chinese painting. To achieve this, we first developed a quantitative framework for Chinese painting critique. This framework was constructed by extracting multi-dimensional evaluative features covering evaluative stance, feature focus, and commentary quality from human expert critiques using a zero-shot classification model. Based on these features, several representative critic personas were defined and quantified. This framework was then employed to evaluate selected VLMs such as Llama, Qwen, or Gemini. The experimental design involved persona-guided prompting to assess the VLM’s ability to generate critiques from diverse perspectives. Our findings reveal the current performance levels, strengths, and areas for improvement of VLMs in the domain of art critique, offering insights into their potential and limitations in complex semantic understanding and content generation tasks.
Anthology ID:
2025.findings-emnlp.103
Volume:
Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2025
Month:
November
Year:
2025
Address:
Suzhou, China
Editors:
Christos Christodoulopoulos, Tanmoy Chakraborty, Carolyn Rose, Violet Peng
Venue:
Findings
SIG:
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
1945–1971
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2025.findings-emnlp.103/
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Haorui Yu, Ramon Ruiz-Dolz, and Qiufeng Yi. 2025. A Structured Framework for Evaluating and Enhancing Interpretive Capabilities of Multimodal LLMs in Culturally Situated Tasks. In Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2025, pages 1945–1971, Suzhou, China. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
A Structured Framework for Evaluating and Enhancing Interpretive Capabilities of Multimodal LLMs in Culturally Situated Tasks (Yu et al., Findings 2025)
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https://aclanthology.org/2025.findings-emnlp.103.pdf
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