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Thinking with Tables: Enhancing Multi-Modal Tabular Understanding via Neuro-Symbolic Reasoning

Kun-Yang Yu, Zhi Zhou, Shi-Yu Tian, Xiao-Wen Yang, Zi-Yi Jia, Ming Yang, Zi-Jian Cheng, Lan-Zhe Guo, Yu-Feng Li · Mar 25, 2026 · Citations: 0

How to use this page

Low trust

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

Best use

Background context only

What to verify

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

Evidence quality

Low

Derived from extracted protocol signals and abstract evidence.

Abstract

Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) have demonstrated remarkable reasoning capabilities across modalities such as images and text. However, tabular data, despite being a critical real-world modality, remains relatively underexplored in multimodal learning. In this paper, we focus on the task of Tabular-Vision Multi-Modal Understanding (TVMU) and identify three core challenges: (1) high structural variability and data incompleteness in tables, (2) implicit and complex feature dependencies, and (3) significant heterogeneity in problem-solving pipelines across downstream tasks. To address these issues, we propose Thinking with Tables (TWT). TWT employs a program-aided code-based neuro-symbolic reasoning mechanism that facilitates key operations, such as information extraction and element modeling, by interacting with external environments. We evaluate TWT on eight representative datasets. Experimental results demonstrate that TWT consistently outperforms existing baselines by an average of 10\% in accuracy, achieving performance comparable to, or even surpassing, proprietary commercial SOTA LLMs on TVMU tasks. Models and codes are available at https://github.com/kunyang-YU/Thinking-with-Tables

Abstract-only analysis — low confidence

All signals on this page are inferred from the abstract only and may be inaccurate. Do not use this page as a primary protocol reference.

  • This paper looks adjacent to evaluation work, but not like a strong protocol reference.
  • The available metadata is too thin to trust this as a primary source.

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.

Best use

Background context only

Use if you need

A secondary eval reference to pair with stronger protocol papers.

Main weakness

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

Trust level

Low

Usefulness score

0/100 • Low

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

Human Feedback Signal

Not explicit in abstract metadata

Evaluation Signal

Detected

Usefulness for eval research

Adjacent candidate

Extraction confidence 35%

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.

"Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) have demonstrated remarkable reasoning capabilities across modalities such as images and text."

Evaluation Modes

partial

Automatic Metrics

Includes extracted eval setup.

"Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) have demonstrated remarkable reasoning capabilities across modalities such as images and text."

Quality Controls

missing

Not reported

No explicit QC controls found.

"Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) have demonstrated remarkable reasoning capabilities across modalities such as images and text."

Benchmarks / Datasets

missing

Not extracted

No benchmark anchors detected.

"Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) have demonstrated remarkable reasoning capabilities across modalities such as images and text."

Reported Metrics

partial

Accuracy

Useful for evaluation criteria comparison.

"Experimental results demonstrate that TWT consistently outperforms existing baselines by an average of 10\% in accuracy, achieving performance comparable to, or even surpassing, proprietary commercial SOTA LLMs on TVMU tasks."

Human Feedback Details

  • Uses human feedback: No
  • Feedback types: None
  • Rater population: Not reported
  • Expertise required: Coding

Evaluation Details

  • Evaluation modes: Automatic Metrics
  • Agentic eval: None
  • Quality controls: Not reported
  • Evidence quality: Low
  • Use this page as: Background context only

Protocol And Measurement Signals

Benchmarks / Datasets

No benchmark or dataset names were extracted from the available abstract.

Reported Metrics

accuracy

Research Brief

Metadata summary

Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) have demonstrated remarkable reasoning capabilities across modalities such as images and text.

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

Key Takeaways

  • Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) have demonstrated remarkable reasoning capabilities across modalities such as images and text.
  • However, tabular data, despite being a critical real-world modality, remains relatively underexplored in multimodal learning.
  • In this paper, we focus on the task of Tabular-Vision Multi-Modal Understanding (TVMU) and identify three core challenges: (1) high structural variability and data incompleteness in tables, (2) implicit and complex feature dependencies, and (3) significant heterogeneity in problem-solving pipelines across downstream tasks.

Researcher Actions

  • Compare this paper against nearby papers in the same arXiv category before using it for protocol decisions.
  • Validate inferred eval signals (Automatic metrics) against the full paper.
  • 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

Research Summary

Contribution Summary

  • To address these issues, we propose Thinking with Tables (TWT).
  • We evaluate TWT on eight representative datasets.
  • Experimental results demonstrate that TWT consistently outperforms existing baselines by an average of 10\% in accuracy, achieving performance comparable to, or even surpassing, proprietary commercial SOTA LLMs on TVMU tasks.

Why It Matters For Eval

  • Abstract shows limited direct human-feedback or evaluation-protocol detail; use as adjacent methodological context.

Researcher Checklist

  • Gap: Human feedback protocol is explicit

    No explicit human feedback protocol detected.

  • Pass: Evaluation mode is explicit

    Detected: Automatic Metrics

  • Gap: Quality control reporting appears

    No calibration/adjudication/IAA control explicitly detected.

  • Gap: Benchmark or dataset anchors are present

    No benchmark/dataset anchor extracted from abstract.

  • Pass: Metric reporting is present

    Detected: accuracy

Related Papers

Papers are ranked by protocol overlap, extraction signal alignment, and semantic proximity.

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