Windsock is Dancing: Adaptive Multimodal Retrieval-Augmented Generation

Shu Zhao; Tianyi Shen; Nilesh Ahuja; Omesh Tickoo; Vijaykrishnan Narayanan

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arXiv · 2510.22694

Windsock is Dancing: Adaptive Multimodal Retrieval-Augmented Generation

Shu Zhao·Tianyi Shen·Nilesh Ahuja·Omesh Tickoo·Vijaykrishnan Narayanan

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Abstract

Multimodal Retrieval-Augmented Generation (MRAG) has emerged as a promising method to generate factual and up-to-date responses of Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) by incorporating non-parametric knowledge from external knowledge bases. However, existing MRAG approaches suffer from static retrieval strategies, inflexible modality selection, and suboptimal utilization of retrieved information, leading to three critical challenges: determining when to retrieve, what modality to incorporate, and how to utilize retrieved information effectively. To address these challenges, we introduce Windsock, a query-dependent module making decisions on retrieval necessity and modality selection, effectively reducing computational overhead and improving response quality. Additionally, we propose Dynamic Noise-Resistance (DANCE) Instruction Tuning, an adaptive training strategy that enhances MLLMs' ability to utilize retrieved information while maintaining robustness against noise. Moreover, we adopt a self-assessment approach leveraging knowledge within MLLMs to convert question-answering datasets to MRAG training datasets. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our proposed method significantly improves the generation quality by 17.07% while reducing 8.95% retrieval times.

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Shu Zhao, Tianyi Shen, Nilesh Ahuja, Omesh Tickoo, Vijaykrishnan Narayanan. 2025-10-26. Windsock is Dancing: Adaptive Multimodal Retrieval-Augmented Generation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.22694

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