MedLayBench-V: A Large-Scale Benchmark for Expert-Lay Semantic Alignment in Medical Vision Language Models

Han Jang, Junhyeok Lee, Heeseong Eum, Kyu Sung Choi


Abstract
Medical Vision-Language Models (Med-VLMs) have achieved expert-level proficiency in interpreting diagnostic imaging. However, current models are predominantly trained on professional literature, limiting their ability to communicate findings in the lay register required for patient-centered care. While text-centric research has actively developed resources for simplifying medical jargon, there is a critical absence of large-scale multimodal benchmarks designed to facilitate lay-accessible medical image understanding. To bridge this resource gap, we introduce MedLayBench-V, the first large-scale multimodal benchmark dedicated to expert-lay semantic alignment. Unlike naive simplification approaches that risk hallucination, our dataset is constructed via a Structured Concept-Grounded Refinement (SCGR) pipeline. This method enforces strict semantic equivalence by integrating Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Concept Unique Identifiers (CUIs) with micro-level entity constraints. MedLayBench-V provides a verified foundation for training and evaluating next-generation Med-VLMs capable of bridging the communication divide between clinical experts and patients.
Anthology ID:
2026.findings-acl.914
Volume:
Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2026
Month:
July
Year:
2026
Address:
San Diego, California, United States
Editors:
Maria Liakata, Viviane P. Moreira, Jiajun Zhang, David Jurgens
Venue:
Findings
SIG:
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
18375–18394
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.914/
DOI:
10.18653/v1/2026.findings-acl.914
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Han Jang, Junhyeok Lee, Heeseong Eum, and Kyu Sung Choi. 2026. MedLayBench-V: A Large-Scale Benchmark for Expert-Lay Semantic Alignment in Medical Vision Language Models. In Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2026, pages 18375–18394, San Diego, California, United States. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
MedLayBench-V: A Large-Scale Benchmark for Expert-Lay Semantic Alignment in Medical Vision Language Models (Jang et al., Findings 2026)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.914.pdf
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