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HFEPX · Eval paper review

How LLMs See Creativity: Zero-Shot Scoring of Visual Creativity with Interpretable Reasoning

William Orwig, Roger E. Beaty

Published

Jun 29, 2026

Citations

0

Trust level

Low

Usefulness score

2/100 (Low)

Extraction confidence

40% (Low)

Derived from extracted protocol signals and abstract evidence.

Rater population

Not reported

Signals refreshed

Jun 29, 2026

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Human Eval

Should you rely on this paper?

This paper is adjacent to HFEPX scope and is best used for background context, not as a primary protocol reference.

Use this as background context only. Do not make protocol decisions from this page alone.

Best use

Background context only

Use if you need

A secondary eval reference to pair with stronger protocol papers.

What to verify

Validate the evaluation procedure and quality controls in the full paper before operational use.

Main weakness

This paper looks adjacent to evaluation work, but not like a strong protocol reference.

Human feedback signal
Not explicit
Not explicit in abstract metadata
Evaluation signal
Detected
Eval setup described
Usefulness for eval research
2/100
Adjacent candidate

Treat as adjacent context, not a core eval-method reference.

If you are doing eval pipeline work, start here

Human Eval Papers LLM-as-Judge Papers Pairwise Preference Papers Tool-Use Evaluation Search

Abstract

Evaluating the originality of visual images poses enduring challenges for creativity assessment. Automated scoring using AI models has proven effective in the verbal domain, yet key questions remain about evaluating visual creativity and understanding how models arrive at their ratings. The present research asks whether multimodal large language models (LLMs) can serve as judges of visual creativity zero-shot (without any fine-tuning or examples of human ratings) and whether their "reasoning" output offers an interpretable window into their evaluation process. We tested six multimodal LLMs (Gemini 3 Flash, Gemma 4 31B IT, GPT-5.4 Mini, GLM-5v Turbo, Kimi K2.5, and Qwen 3.6 Plus) on 992 AI-generated images (based on human-written prompts) and 1,500 hand-drawn sketches scored for creativity by human raters. In Study 1, all models showed substantial alignment with human creativity ratings on both datasets (r = .57-.68 on AI-generated images; r = .29-68 on sketches). In Study 2, we analyzed the step-by-step reasoning processes of three LLMs evaluating the same images and drawings. Although reasoning made model evaluations interpretable -- showing what they attend to, how they balance originality vs. quality, and how they justify their ratings -- reasoning did not improve alignment with human ratings. In sum, our findings indicate that multimodal LLMs can match human judgments of visual creativity without any additional training, and that their reasoning reveals how AI models evaluate creativity. An open scoring app implementing this pipeline is available at https://review-visual-eval-scoring.hf.space.

What we could verify

These are the protocol signals we could actually recover from the available paper metadata. Use them to decide whether this paper is worth deeper reading.

Human Feedback Types

missing

None explicit

No explicit feedback protocol extracted.

"Evaluating the originality of visual images poses enduring challenges for creativity assessment."

Evaluation Modes

partial

Human Eval

Includes extracted eval setup.

"Evaluating the originality of visual images poses enduring challenges for creativity assessment."

Quality Controls

missing

Not reported

No explicit QC controls found.

"Evaluating the originality of visual images poses enduring challenges for creativity assessment."

Benchmarks / Datasets

partial

Review Visual Eval

Useful for quick benchmark comparison.

"An open scoring app implementing this pipeline is available at https://review-visual-eval-scoring.hf.space."

Reported Metrics

missing

Not extracted

No metric anchors detected.

"Evaluating the originality of visual images poses enduring challenges for creativity assessment."

Benchmarks and datasets

review-visual-eval

Reported metrics

No metric terms were extracted from the available abstract.

Human feedback details
Uses human feedback
No
Feedback types
None
Rater population
Not reported
Expertise required
General
Evaluation details
Evaluation modes
Human Eval
Agentic eval
None
Quality controls
Not reported
Evidence quality
Low
Use this page as
Background context only

Research brief

Metadata summary

Evaluating the originality of visual images poses enduring challenges for creativity assessment.

Based on abstract + metadata only. Check the source paper before making high-confidence protocol decisions.

Key takeaways

  • Evaluating the originality of visual images poses enduring challenges for creativity assessment.
  • Automated scoring using AI models has proven effective in the verbal domain, yet key questions remain about evaluating visual creativity and understanding how models arrive at their ratings.
  • The present research asks whether multimodal large language models (LLMs) can serve as judges of visual creativity zero-shot (without any fine-tuning or examples of human ratings) and whether their "reasoning" output offers an interpretable window into their evaluation process.

Researcher actions

  • Compare this paper against nearby papers in the same arXiv category before using it for protocol decisions.
  • Check the full text for explicit evaluation design choices (raters, protocol, and metrics).
  • Use related-paper links to find stronger protocol-specific references.

Caveats

  • Generated from abstract + metadata only; no PDF parsing.
  • Signals below are heuristic and may miss details reported outside the abstract.

Recommended queries

Contribution summary

  • The present research asks whether multimodal large language models (LLMs) can serve as judges of visual creativity zero-shot (without any fine-tuning or examples of human ratings) and whether their "reasoning" output offers an interpretable…
  • We tested six multimodal LLMs (Gemini 3 Flash, Gemma 4 31B IT, GPT-5.4 Mini, GLM-5v Turbo, Kimi K2.5, and Qwen 3.6 Plus) on 992 AI-generated images (based on human-written prompts) and 1,500 hand-drawn sketches scored for creativity by…
  • In Study 1, all models showed substantial alignment with human creativity ratings on both datasets (r = .57-.68 on AI-generated images; r = .29-68 on sketches).

Why it matters for eval

  • The present research asks whether multimodal large language models (LLMs) can serve as judges of visual creativity zero-shot (without any fine-tuning or examples of human ratings) and whether their "reasoning" output offers an interpretable…
  • We tested six multimodal LLMs (Gemini 3 Flash, Gemma 4 31B IT, GPT-5.4 Mini, GLM-5v Turbo, Kimi K2.5, and Qwen 3.6 Plus) on 992 AI-generated images (based on human-written prompts) and 1,500 hand-drawn sketches scored for creativity by…

Researcher checklist

  • Human feedback protocol is explicit

    No explicit human feedback protocol detected.

  • Evaluation mode is explicit

    Detected: Human Eval

  • Quality control reporting appears

    No calibration/adjudication/IAA control explicitly detected.

  • Benchmark or dataset anchors are present

    Detected: review-visual-eval

  • Metric reporting is present

    No metric terms extracted.