arXiv · 2511.03617
Visualization Biases MLLM's Decision Making in Network Data Tasks
Abstract
We evaluate how visualizations can influence the judgment of MLLMs about the presence or absence of bridges in a network. We show that the inclusion of visualization improves confidence over a structured text-based input that could theoretically be helpful for answering the question. On the other hand, we observe that standard visualization techniques create a strong bias towards accepting or refuting the presence of a bridge -- independently of whether or not a bridge actually exists in the network. While our results indicate that the inclusion of visualization techniques can effectively influence the MLLM's judgment without compromising its self-reported confidence, they also imply that practitioners must be careful of allowing users to include visualizations in generative AI applications so as to avoid undesired hallucinations.
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Timo Brand, Henry Förster, Stephen G. Kobourov, Jacob Miller. 2025-11-05. Visualization Biases MLLM's Decision Making in Network Data Tasks. https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.03617
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