Can I use figures from papers published by other authors in (the literature survey part) my thesis defense presentation? Scholarly work usually requires comparing methods in the recent literature. Such work can be explained elaborately in words for an article but not so easily in a presentation. I would like to illustrate the existing methods in my thesis defence. It would make sense to use the figures as published in the papers themselves (with appropriate citation, of course).

My question is that would it be enough to just cite the papers along with the figures reproduced or do I require any prior permission from the authors or publisher before doing so?

It is well known that the act of copy-pasting previously published figures for publishing in another paper without prior permission is unacceptable even with relevant citation. How would this be in the case of a thesis defence (or any other public presentation)?
I've seen many conference presentation showing figures copied from published research papers (of others), giving credit by citing them. This is common practice, so you would not worry. Whether it adheres exactly to the law, I don't know (I doubt it, as you don't re-publish the figure).