An Interactive Visual Tool Enhance Understanding of Random Forest Prediction

• Random forests are known to provide accurate predictions, but the predictions are not easy to understand. In order to provide support for understanding such predictions, an interactive visual tool has been developed. The tool can be used to manipulate selected features to explore what-if scenarios. It exploits the internal structure of decision trees in a trained forest model and presents these information as interactive plots and charts. In addition, the tool presents a simple decision rule as an explanation for the prediction. It also presents the recommendation for reassignments of feature values of the example that leads to change in the prediction to a preferred class. An evaluation of the tool was undertaken in a large truck manufacturing company, targeting a fault prediction of a selected component in trucks. A set of domain experts were invited to use the tool and provide feedback in post-task interviews. The result of this investigation suggests that the tool indeed may aid in understanding the predictions of random forest, and also allows for gaining new insights.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Datorsystem (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Computer Systems (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Computer and Systems Sciences

data- och systemvetenskap

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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art (ämneskategori)