ResearchResearch paperLarge Language Models · Multimodal Models1 source · Oct 20, 2026

Give the Model a Finger: Developmentally Aligned Evaluation of Counting in Vision-Language Models

Vision-language models (VLMs) are exact on small sets and drift into estimation on larger ones, a profile reminiscent of children before they master counting.

Key points

  • Children cross the barrier with epistemic actions: pointing at each item while reciting number words, moving counted items aside, partitioning the array.
  • We give VLMs the same actions as dumb image tools with no visual intelligence of their own in a training-free agent loop.

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