The paper proposes a new evaluation test for explanation methods: if an explanation accurately captures how a model uses its features, one should be able to reconstruct the model’s predictions from it. The authors convert explanations into predictors by summing feature effects and assess how well these predictors reproduce the model on unseen data, without any fitting. They apply this test to partial dependence plots, accumulated local effects, SHAP, and LIME across multiple datasets and model families, showing that the best method depends on feature dependence and that some existing quality metrics can favor flawed explanations.
By Jacob Selb{\ae}k, Hugo L. Hammer
The paper introduces a straightforward evaluation method for explanation techniques: by converting each explanation into a predictor that sums the feature effects, the authors assess how accurately this predictor reproduces the original model’s predictions on unseen data. This approach applies to any explanation expressible as a function of features and is demonstrated on PDP, ALE, SHAP, and LIME. The authors theoretically show that summing partial dependence curves yields the optimal additive summary when features are independent, but this property fails with dependent features, and empirical results across diverse datasets confirm that the best-performing method depends on feature dependence.
arXiv:2511.15371v3 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: Assessing the importance of individual features in Machine Learning is critical to understand the model's decision-making process. While numerous m...
By Eddie Conti, \'Alvaro Parafita, Axel Brando
arXiv:2604. 15107v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Shapley values provide a flexible framework for attributing feature contributions to model predictions, but they are not naturally suited for feature selection: a feature may receive a positive attribution even when it is redundant given the remaining variables.
By Chenghui Zheng, Garvesh Raskutti
The paper introduces a unified framework called null importance to clarify different notions of feature relevance in interpretable machine learning. It defines null importance at the population level for various relevance concepts—marginal, conditional, predictive risk, functional invariance, and causal effects—and demonstrates how each answers distinct scientific questions. Through theoretical analysis, simulations, and case studies on fairness and genomic modeling, the authors show when these null notions coincide or diverge and how different importance methods target them.
By Garvesh Raskutti, Kris Sankaran, Jiaxin Ye
arXiv:2601.06701v2 Announce Type: replace-cross
Abstract: Complex AI systems make better predictions but often lack transparency, limiting trustworthiness, interpretability, and safe deployment. Comm...
By Poushali Sengupta, Rabindra Khadka, Sabita Maharjan, Frank Eliassen, Yan Zhang, Shashi Raj Pandey, Pedro G. Lind, Anis Yazidi
arXiv:2606. 31686v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Feature rankings are widely used in supervised feature selection because they are simple, scalable and easy to interpret.
By Jesus S. Aguilar-Ruiz
arXiv:2609.36396v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: As black-box machine learning models become increasingly common, extracting interpretations with uncertainty quantification has become a critical cha...
By Yinan Cheng, Lili Zheng
arXiv:2607. 14096v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: In predictive modeling, the ability to explain why a model produces a given target prediction has become increasingly important [5, 10].
By Emiliano Massi
The paper introduces Adaptive Derivative-Ordered Random Explanation (ADORE), a unified framework that uses first- and second-order derivatives to capture nonlinear feature interactions and feature-sample dynamics. ADORE combines global feature importance with local sample contributions, quantifying both magnitude and direction of feature impact while identifying critical samples. It achieves computational efficiency via randomized SVD and dynamic sparsity detection, outperforming LIME and SHAP across tabular, text, and image data, and is released as an open-source Python package on GitHub.
By Lemen Chao, Ming Lei, Anran Fanga
arXiv:2607. 24145v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Feature selection aims to identify the most informative and relevant features for a given dataset, either in terms of capturing the underlying data structure and distribution better, or with respect to the performance on a downstream task.
By Muhammad Rajabinasab, Arthur Zimek
arXiv:2603. 13326v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Multimodal Transformers often produce predictions without clarifying how different modalities jointly support a decision.
By Yeji Kim, Housam Khalifa Bashier Babiker, Mi-Young Kim, Randy Goebel