The Effect of Balancing Methods on Model Behavior in Imbalanced Classification Problems

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Stando, Adrian, Cavus, Mustafa, Biecek, Przemysław
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Stando, Adrian
Cavus, Mustafa
Biecek, Przemysław
author_facet Stando, Adrian
Cavus, Mustafa
Biecek, Przemysław
contents Imbalanced data poses a significant challenge in classification as model performance is affected by insufficient learning from minority classes. Balancing methods are often used to address this problem. However, such techniques can lead to problems such as overfitting or loss of information. This study addresses a more challenging aspect of balancing methods - their impact on model behavior. To capture these changes, Explainable Artificial Intelligence tools are used to compare models trained on datasets before and after balancing. In addition to the variable importance method, this study uses the partial dependence profile and accumulated local effects techniques. Real and simulated datasets are tested, and an open-source Python package edgaro is developed to facilitate this analysis. The results obtained show significant changes in model behavior due to balancing methods, which can lead to biased models toward a balanced distribution. These findings confirm that balancing analysis should go beyond model performance comparisons to achieve higher reliability of machine learning models. Therefore, we propose a new method performance gain plot for informed data balancing strategy to make an optimal selection of balancing method by analyzing the measure of change in model behavior versus performance gain.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2307_00157
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Effect of Balancing Methods on Model Behavior in Imbalanced Classification Problems
Stando, Adrian
Cavus, Mustafa
Biecek, Przemysław
Machine Learning
Imbalanced data poses a significant challenge in classification as model performance is affected by insufficient learning from minority classes. Balancing methods are often used to address this problem. However, such techniques can lead to problems such as overfitting or loss of information. This study addresses a more challenging aspect of balancing methods - their impact on model behavior. To capture these changes, Explainable Artificial Intelligence tools are used to compare models trained on datasets before and after balancing. In addition to the variable importance method, this study uses the partial dependence profile and accumulated local effects techniques. Real and simulated datasets are tested, and an open-source Python package edgaro is developed to facilitate this analysis. The results obtained show significant changes in model behavior due to balancing methods, which can lead to biased models toward a balanced distribution. These findings confirm that balancing analysis should go beyond model performance comparisons to achieve higher reliability of machine learning models. Therefore, we propose a new method performance gain plot for informed data balancing strategy to make an optimal selection of balancing method by analyzing the measure of change in model behavior versus performance gain.
title The Effect of Balancing Methods on Model Behavior in Imbalanced Classification Problems
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.00157