Benchmarking non-conformity score functions in conformal prediction

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteur principal: Boman, Sol Erika
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2026
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author Boman, Sol Erika
author_facet Boman, Sol Erika
contents Conformal prediction is a useful and versatile alternative to model calibration in machine learning classification. It replaces single-class prediction with prediction sets, guaranteeing that the \textit{a priori} probability of the prediction sets containing the true class is larger than or equal to a pre-specified rate. The size and usefulness of the prediction sets relies heavily on the choice of the non-conformity score function. The scientific literature contains many examples of non-conformity score functions but there is an absence of studies examining their properties and effectiveness. In this paper, we give an overview of properties of non-conformity score functions. We give examples of non-conformity score functions in the existing literature and introduce original modifications. We introduce an original method of evaluating the prediction set sizes of conformal predictors and use it to provide a comparison between non-conformity score functions. We also examine efficacy of different non-conformity score functions for class-conditional conformal prediction in a setting with imbalanced classes.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_24983
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Benchmarking non-conformity score functions in conformal prediction
Boman, Sol Erika
Machine Learning
Conformal prediction is a useful and versatile alternative to model calibration in machine learning classification. It replaces single-class prediction with prediction sets, guaranteeing that the \textit{a priori} probability of the prediction sets containing the true class is larger than or equal to a pre-specified rate. The size and usefulness of the prediction sets relies heavily on the choice of the non-conformity score function. The scientific literature contains many examples of non-conformity score functions but there is an absence of studies examining their properties and effectiveness. In this paper, we give an overview of properties of non-conformity score functions. We give examples of non-conformity score functions in the existing literature and introduce original modifications. We introduce an original method of evaluating the prediction set sizes of conformal predictors and use it to provide a comparison between non-conformity score functions. We also examine efficacy of different non-conformity score functions for class-conditional conformal prediction in a setting with imbalanced classes.
title Benchmarking non-conformity score functions in conformal prediction
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.24983