Instance-preserving graded semantic reporting for surgical action triplets

arXiv:2611.13009v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Complete-or-reject reporting of surgical action triplets can discard a correctly identified instrument and action when the target is uncertain. We introduce instance-preserving graded semantic reporting, which separates instance selection from the choice of semantic detail. Each selected instance retains its predicted mask and labels while hierarchical correctness scores guide instrument (I), instrument-verb (IV), or complete instrument-verb-target (IVT) reporting. The utility-increment rule DELTA weighs the expected gain from finer reporting against its error cost. We compare three decision rules on 5,641 test frames from eight surgical videos using fixed predictions and scores. At the 10% development calibration target, DELTA retains correct partial reports for 80.0% of candidates rejected by a matched complete-or-reject baseline (5,329/6,662). Adding IV increases source-normalized weighted correct-report yield by 19.13 to 23.13 per 100 frames across all three rules relative to separately recalibrated I/IVT controls. Weighted reporting risk changes by -0.77 to +1.01…