arXiv · 2610.21251
Do VLAs Really Follow Instructions? Diagnosing How-Level Instruction Following in Vision-Language-Action Models
Abstract
Vision-language-action (VLA) models are expected to follow instructions like their language backbones, yet prior work has focused on What-level instructions that specify the task rather than How-level instructions that specify how to carry it out. Through our diagnoses, we find that How-level instructions do not help current VLAs and lower task success. We hypothesize that pairing each training episode with a single instruction limits How-level instruction following, and show that training with segment-level enriched instructions makes actions respond to such instructions without consistently raising task success. To measure How-level instruction following beyond standard benchmarks, we introduce SIMPLER-IN, where success requires conditions given only in the instruction. It shows that the gained responsiveness does not extend to demanding or out-of-distribution How-level instructions. How-level instruction following thus remains an open challenge.
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Sangwu Park, Wonjoong Kim, Yeonjun In, Chanyoung Park. 2026-10-15. Do VLAs Really Follow Instructions? Diagnosing How-Level Instruction Following in Vision-Language-Action Models. https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.21251
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