All You Need Are Random Visual Tokens? Demystifying Token Pruning in VLLMs

arXiv — cs.CVTuesday, December 9, 2025 at 5:00:00 AM
  • A recent study on Vision Large Language Models (VLLMs) highlights the limitations of token pruning methods, revealing that in deeper layers of the model, existing training-free pruning techniques yield results no better than random pruning. This phenomenon is attributed to 'vanishing token information', where the significance of visual tokens diminishes as the network depth increases.
  • The findings underscore the challenges faced in optimizing VLLMs, which are crucial for applications in visual question answering and optical character recognition. Understanding token information retention is vital for improving model efficiency and performance in real-world tasks.
  • This research contributes to ongoing discussions about enhancing multimodal reasoning capabilities in AI, as various approaches, such as adaptive focusing and dynamic token compression, aim to address the inefficiencies in processing visual data. The exploration of continuous visual tokens and self-evolving frameworks reflects a broader trend towards refining AI models to better handle complex visual inputs.
— via World Pulse Now AI Editorial System

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