# lime

Local interpretable model-agnostic explanations (LIME)

## Description

LIME explains a prediction of a machine learning model (classification or regression) for a query point by finding important predictors and fitting a simple interpretable model.

You can create a lime object for a machine learning model with a specified query point (queryPoint) and a specified number of important predictors (numImportantPredictors). The software generates a synthetic data set, and fits a simple interpretable model of important predictors that effectively explains the predictions for the synthetic data around the query point. The simple model can be a linear model (default) or decision tree model.

Use the fitted simple model to explain a prediction of the machine learning model locally, at the specified query point. Use the plot function to visualize the LIME results. Based on the local explanations, you can decide whether or not to trust the machine learning model.

Fit a new simple model for another query point by using the fit function.

## Creation

### Description

results = lime(blackbox) creates a lime object using a machine learning model object blackbox that contains predictor data. The lime function generates samples of a synthetic predictor data set and computes the predictions for the samples. To fit a simple model, use the fit function with results.

example

results = lime(blackbox,X) creates a lime object using the predictor data in X.

results = lime(blackbox,'CustomSyntheticData',customSyntheticData) creates a lime object using the pregenerated, custom synthetic predictor data set customSyntheticData. The lime function computes the predictions for the samples in customSyntheticData.

example

results = lime(___,'QueryPoint',queryPoint,'NumImportantPredictors',numImportantPredictors) also finds the specified number of important predictors and fits a linear simple model for the query point queryPoint. You can specify queryPoint and numImportantPredictors in addition to any of the input argument combinations in the previous syntaxes.

example

results = lime(___,Name,Value) specifies additional options using one or more name-value arguments. For example, 'SimpleModelType','tree' specifies the type of simple model as a decision tree model.

### Input Arguments

expand all

Machine learning model to be interpreted, specified as a full or compact regression or classification model object or a function handle.

Predictor data, specified as a numeric matrix or table. Each row of X corresponds to one observation, and each column corresponds to one variable.

X must be consistent with the predictor data that trained blackbox, stored in blackbox.X. The specified value must not contain a response variable.

• X must have the same data types as the predictor variables (for example, trainX) that trained blackbox. The variables that make up the columns of X must have the same number and order as in trainX.

• If you train blackbox using a numeric matrix, then X must be a numeric matrix.

• If you train blackbox using a table, then X must be a table. All predictor variables in X must have the same variable names and data types as in trainX.

• lime does not support a sparse matrix.

If blackbox is a model object that does not contain predictor data or a function handle, you must provide X or customSyntheticData. If blackbox is a full machine learning model object and you specify this argument, then lime does not use the predictor data in blackbox. It uses the specified predictor data only.

Data Types: single | double | table

Pregenerated, custom synthetic predictor data set, specified as a numeric matrix or table.

If you provide a pregenerated data set, then lime uses the provided data set instead of generating a new synthetic predictor data set.

customSyntheticData must be consistent with the predictor data that trained blackbox, stored in blackbox.X. The specified value must not contain a response variable.

• customSyntheticData must have the same data types as the predictor variables (for example, trainX) that trained blackbox. The variables that make up the columns of customSyntheticData must have the same number and order as in trainX

• If you train blackbox using a numeric matrix, then customSyntheticData must be a numeric matrix.

• If you train blackbox using a table, then customSyntheticData must be a table. All predictor variables in customSyntheticData must have the same variable names and data types as in trainX.

• lime does not support a sparse matrix.

If blackbox is a model object that does not contain predictor data or a function handle, you must provide X or customSyntheticData. If blackbox is a full machine learning model object and you specify this argument, then lime does not use the predictor data in blackbox; it uses the specified predictor data only.

Data Types: single | double | table

Query point at which lime explains a prediction, specified as a row vector of numeric values or a single-row table. queryPoint must have the same data type and number of columns as X, customSyntheticData, or the predictor data in blackbox.

If you specify numImportantPredictors and queryPoint, then the lime function fits a simple model when creating a lime object.

queryPoint must not contain missing values.

Example: blackbox.X(1,:) specifies the query point as the first observation of the predictor data in the full machine learning model blackbox.

Data Types: single | double | table

Number of important predictors to use in the simple model, specified as a positive integer scalar value.

• If 'SimpleModelType' is 'linear', then the software selects the specified number of important predictors and fits a linear model of the selected predictors.

• If 'SimpleModelType' is 'tree', then the software specifies the maximum number of decision splits (or branch nodes) as the number of important predictors so that the fitted decision tree uses at most the specified number of predictors.

If you specify numImportantPredictors and queryPoint, then the lime function fits a simple model when creating a lime object.

Data Types: single | double

Name-Value Pair Arguments

Specify optional comma-separated pairs of Name,Value arguments. Name is the argument name and Value is the corresponding value. Name must appear inside quotes. You can specify several name and value pair arguments in any order as Name1,Value1,...,NameN,ValueN.

Example: lime(blackbox,'QueryPoint',q,'NumImportantPredictors',n,'SimpleModelType','tree') specifies the query point as q, the number of important predictors to use for the simple model as n, and the type of simple model as a decision tree model. lime generates samples of a synthetic predictor data set, computes the predictions for the samples, and fits a decision tree model for the query point using at most the specified number of predictors.
Options for Synthetic Predictor Data

expand all

Locality of the synthetic data for data generation, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'DataLocality' and 'global' or 'local'.

• 'global' — The software estimates distribution parameters using the whole predictor data set (X or the predictor data in blackbox). The software generates a synthetic predictor data set with the estimated parameters and uses the data set for simple model fitting of any query point.

• 'local' — The software estimates the distribution parameters using the k-nearest neighbors of a query point, where k is the 'NumNeighbors' value. The software generates a new synthetic predictor data set each time it fits a simple model for the specified query point.

For more details, see LIME.

Example: 'DataLocality','local'

Data Types: char | string

Number of neighbors of the query point, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'NumNeighbors' and a positive integer scalar value. This argument is valid only when 'DataLocality' is 'local'.

If you specify a value larger than the number of observations in the predictor data set (X or the predictor data in blackbox), then lime uses all observations.

Example: 'NumNeighbors',2000

Data Types: single | double

Number of samples to generate for the synthetic data set, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'NumSyntheticData' and a positive integer scalar value.

Example: 'NumSyntheticData',2500

Data Types: single | double

Options for Simple Model

expand all

Kernel width of the squared exponential (or Gaussian) kernel function, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'KernelWidth' and a numeric scalar value.

The lime function computes distances between the query point and the samples in the synthetic predictor data set, and then converts the distances to weights by using the squared exponential kernel function. If you lower the 'KernelWidth' value, then lime uses weights that are more focused on the samples near the query point. For details, see LIME.

Example: 'KernelWidth',0.5

Data Types: single | double

Type of the simple model, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'SimpleModelType' and 'linear' or 'tree'.

• 'linear' — The software fits a linear model by using fitrlinear for regression or fitclinear for classification.

• 'tree' — The software fits a decision tree model by using fitrtree for regression or fitctree for classification.

Example: 'SimpleModelType','tree'

Data Types: char | string

Options for Machine Learning Model

expand all

Categorical predictors list, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'CategoricalPredictors' and one of the values in this table.

ValueDescription
Vector of positive integers

Each entry in the vector is an index value indicating that the corresponding predictor is categorical. The index values are between 1 and p, where p is the number of predictors used to train the model.

If blackbox uses a subset of input variables as predictors, then the software indexes the predictors using only the subset. The 'CategoricalPredictors' values do not count the response variable, observation weight variable, or any other variables that the function does not use.

Logical vector

A true entry means that the corresponding predictor is categorical. The length of the vector is p.

Character matrixEach row of the matrix is the name of a predictor variable. The names must match the variable names of the predictor data in the form of a table. Pad the names with extra blanks so each row of the character matrix has the same length.
String array or cell array of character vectorsEach element in the array is the name of a predictor variable. The names must match the variable names of the predictor data in the form of a table.
'all'All predictors are categorical.

• If you specify blackbox as a function handle, then lime identifies categorical predictors from the predictor data X or customSyntheticData. If the predictor data is in a table, lime assumes that a variable is categorical if it is a logical vector, unordered categorical vector, character array, string array, or cell array of character vectors. If the predictor data is a matrix, lime assumes that all predictors are continuous.

• If you specify blackbox as a regression or classification model object, then lime identifies categorical predictors by using the CategoricalPredictors property of the model object.

lime does not support an ordered categorical predictor.

Example: 'CategoricalPredictors','all'

Data Types: single | double | logical | char | string | cell

Type of the machine learning model, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'Type' and 'regression or 'classification'.

You must specify this argument when you specify blackbox as a function handle. If you specify blackbox as a regression or classification model object, then lime determines the 'Type' value depending on the model type.

Example: 'Type','classification'

Data Types: char | string

Options for Computing Distances

expand all

Distance metric, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'Distance' and a character vector, string scalar, or function handle.

• If the predictor data includes only continuous variables, then lime supports these distance metrics.

ValueDescription
'euclidean'

Euclidean distance.

'seuclidean'

Standardized Euclidean distance. Each coordinate difference between observations is scaled by dividing by the corresponding element of the standard deviation, S = std(PD,'omitnan'), where PD is the predictor data or synthetic predictor data. To specify different scaling, use the 'Scale' name-value argument.

'mahalanobis'

Mahalanobis distance using the sample covariance of PD, C = cov(PD,'omitrows'). To change the value of the covariance matrix, use the 'Cov' name-value argument.

'cityblock'

City block distance.

'minkowski'

Minkowski distance. The default exponent is 2. To specify a different exponent, use the 'P' name-value argument.

'chebychev'

Chebychev distance (maximum coordinate difference).

'cosine'

One minus the cosine of the included angle between points (treated as vectors).

'correlation'

One minus the sample correlation between points (treated as sequences of values).

'spearman'

One minus the sample Spearman's rank correlation between observations (treated as sequences of values).

@distfun

Custom distance function handle. A distance function has the form

function D2 = distfun(ZI,ZJ)
% calculation of distance
...
where

• ZI is a 1-by-t vector containing a single observation.

• ZJ is an s-by-t matrix containing multiple observations. distfun must accept a matrix ZJ with an arbitrary number of observations.

• D2 is an s-by-1 vector of distances, and D2(k) is the distance between observations ZI and ZJ(k,:).

If your data is not sparse, you can generally compute distance more quickly by using a built-in distance metric instead of a function handle.

• If the predictor data includes both continuous and categorical variables, then lime supports these distance metrics.

ValueDescription
'goodall3'

Modified Goodall distance

'ofd'

Occurrence frequency distance

For definitions, see Distance Metrics.

The default value is 'euclidean' if the predictor data includes only continuous variables, or 'goodall3' if the predictor data includes both continuous and categorical variables.

Example: 'Distance','ofd'

Data Types: char | string | function_handle

Covariance matrix for the Mahalanobis distance metric, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'Cov' and a K-by-K positive definite matrix, where K is the number of predictors.

This argument is valid only if 'Distance' is 'mahalanobis'.

The default 'Cov' value is cov(PD,'omitrows'), where PD is the predictor data or synthetic predictor data. If you do not specify the 'Cov' value, then the software uses different covariance matrices when computing the distances for both the predictor data and the synthetic predictor data.

Example: 'Cov',eye(3)

Data Types: single | double

Exponent for the Minkowski distance metric, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'P' and a positive scalar.

This argument is valid only if 'Distance' is 'minkowski'.

Example: 'P',3

Data Types: single | double

Scale parameter value for the standardized Euclidean distance metric, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of 'Scale' and a nonnegative numeric vector of length K, where K is the number of predictors.

This argument is valid only if 'Distance' is 'seuclidean'.

The default 'Scale' value is std(PD,'omitnan'), where PD is the predictor data or synthetic predictor data. If you do not specify the 'Scale' value, then the software uses different scale parameters when computing the distances for both the predictor data and the synthetic predictor data.

Example: 'Scale',quantile(X,0.75) - quantile(X,0.25)

Data Types: single | double

## Properties

expand all

### Specified Properties

You can specify the following properties when creating a lime object.

Machine learning model to be interpreted, specified as a regression or classification model object or a function handle.

The blackbox argument sets this property.

Categorical predictor indices, specified as a vector of positive integers. CategoricalPredictors contains index values indicating that the corresponding predictors are categorical. The index values are between 1 and p, where p is the number of predictors used to train the model. If none of the predictors are categorical, then this property is empty ([]).

• If you specify blackbox using a function handle, then lime identifies categorical predictors from the predictor data X or customSyntheticData. If you specify the 'CategoricalPredictors' name-value argument, then the argument sets this property.

• If you specify blackbox as a regression or classification model object, then lime determines this property by using the CategoricalPredictors property of the model object.

lime does not support an ordered categorical predictor.

If 'SimpleModelType' is 'linear'(default), then lime creates dummy variables for each identified categorical predictor. lime treats the category of the specified query point as a reference group and creates one less dummy variable than the number of categories. For more details, see Dummy Variables with Reference Group.

Data Types: single | double

Locality of the synthetic data for data generation, specified as 'global' or 'local'.

The 'DataLocality' name-value argument sets this property.

Number of important predictors to use in the simple model (SimpleModel), specified as a positive integer scalar value.

The numImportantPredictors argument of lime or the numImportantPredictors argument of fit sets this property.

Data Types: single | double

Number of samples in the synthetic data set, specified as a positive integer scalar value.

Data Types: single | double

Query point at which lime explains a prediction using the simple model (SimpleModel), specified as a row vector of numeric values or single-row table.

The queryPoint argument of lime or the queryPoint argument of fit sets this property.

Data Types: single | double | table

Type of the machine learning model (BlackboxModel), specified as 'regression or 'classification'.

• If you specify blackbox as a regression or classification model object, then lime determines this property depending on the model type.

• If you specify blackbox using a function handle, then the 'Type' name-value argument sets this property.

Predictor data, specified as a numeric matrix or table.

Each row of X corresponds to one observation, and each column corresponds to one variable.

• If you specify the X argument, then the argument sets this property.

• If you specify the customSyntheticData argument, then this property is empty.

• If you specify blackbox as a full machine learning model object and do not specify X or customSyntheticData, then this property value is the predictor data used to train blackbox.

lime does not use rows that contain missing values and does not store the rows in X.

Data Types: single | double | table

### Computed Properties

The software computes the following properties.

Prediction for the query point computed by the machine learning model (BlackboxModel), specified as a scalar. The prediction is a predicted response for regression or a classified label for classification.

Data Types: single | double | categorical | logical | char | string | cell

Predictions for synthetic predictor data computed by the machine learning model (BlackboxModel), specified as a vector.

Data Types: single | double | categorical | logical | char | string | cell

Important predictor indices, specified as a vector of positive integers. ImportantPredictors contains the index values corresponding to the columns of the predictors used in the simple model (SimpleModel).

Data Types: single | double

Simple model, specified as a RegressionLinear, RegressionTree, ClassificationLinear, or ClassificationTree model object. lime determines the type of simple model object depending on the type of the machine learning model (Type) and the type of the simple model ('SimpleModelType').

Prediction for the query point computed by the simple model (SimpleModel), specified as a scalar.

If SimpleModel is ClassificationLinear, then the SimpleModelFitted value is 1 or –1.

• The SimpleModelFitted value is 1 if the prediction from the simple model is the same as BlackboxFitted (prediction from the machine learning model).

• The SimpleModelFitted value is –1 if the prediction from the simple model is different from BlackboxFitted. If the BlackboxFitted value is A, then the plot function displays the SimpleModelFitted value as Not A.

Data Types: single | double | categorical | logical | char | string | cell

Synthetic predictor data, specified as a numeric matrix or a table.

• If you specify the customSyntheticData input argument, then the argument sets this property.

• Otherwise, lime estimates distribution parameters from the predictor data X and generates a synthetic predictor data set.

Data Types: single | double | table

## Object Functions

 fit Fit simple model of local interpretable model-agnostic explanations (LIME) plot Plot results of local interpretable model-agnostic explanations (LIME)

## Examples

collapse all

Train a classification model and create a lime object that uses a decision tree simple model. When you create a lime object, specify a query point and the number of important predictors so that the software generates samples of a synthetic data set and fits a simple model for the query point with important predictors. Then display the estimated predictor importance in the simple model by using the object function plot.

Load the CreditRating_Historical data set. The data set contains customer IDs and their financial ratios, industry labels, and credit ratings.

Display the first three rows of the table.

ans=3×8 table
ID      WC_TA    RE_TA    EBIT_TA    MVE_BVTD    S_TA     Industry    Rating
_____    _____    _____    _______    ________    _____    ________    ______

62394    0.013    0.104     0.036      0.447      0.142       3        {'BB'}
48608    0.232    0.335     0.062      1.969      0.281       8        {'A' }
42444    0.311    0.367     0.074      1.935      0.366       1        {'A' }

Create a table of predictor variables by removing the columns of customer IDs and ratings from tbl.

tblX = removevars(tbl,["ID","Rating"]);

Train a blackbox model of credit ratings by using the fitcecoc function.

blackbox = fitcecoc(tblX,tbl.Rating,'CategoricalPredictors','Industry');

Create a lime object that explains the prediction for the last observation using a decision tree simple model. Specify 'NumImportantPredictors' as six to find at most 6 important predictors. If you specify the 'QueryPoint' and 'NumImportantPredictors' values when you create a lime object, then the software generates samples of a synthetic data set and fits a simple interpretable model to the synthetic data set.

queryPoint = tblX(end,:)
queryPoint=1×6 table
WC_TA    RE_TA    EBIT_TA    MVE_BVTD    S_TA    Industry
_____    _____    _______    ________    ____    ________

0.239    0.463     0.065      2.924      0.34       2

rng('default') % For reproducibility
results = lime(blackbox,'QueryPoint',queryPoint,'NumImportantPredictors',6, ...
'SimpleModelType','tree')
results =
lime with properties:

BlackboxModel: [1x1 ClassificationECOC]
DataLocality: 'global'
CategoricalPredictors: 6
Type: 'classification'
X: [3932x6 table]
QueryPoint: [1x6 table]
NumImportantPredictors: 6
NumSyntheticData: 5000
SyntheticData: [5000x6 table]
Fitted: {5000x1 cell}
SimpleModel: [1x1 ClassificationTree]
ImportantPredictors: [2x1 double]
BlackboxFitted: {'AA'}
SimpleModelFitted: {'AA'}

Plot the lime object results by using the object function plot. To display an existing underscore in any predictor name, change the TickLabelInterpreter value of the axes to 'none'.

f = plot(results);
f.CurrentAxes.TickLabelInterpreter = 'none';

The plot displays two predictions for the query point, which correspond to the BlackboxFitted property and the SimpleModelFitted property of results.

The horizontal bar graph shows the sorted predictor importance values. lime finds the financial ratio variables EBIT_TA and WC_TA as important predictors for the query point.

You can read the bar lengths by using data tips or Bar Properties. For example, you can find Bar objects by using the findobj function and add labels to the ends of the bars by using the text function.

b = findobj(f,'Type','bar');
text(b.YEndPoints+0.001,b.XEndPoints,string(b.YData))

Alternatively, you can display the coefficient values in a table with the predictor variable names.

imp = b.YData;
flipud(array2table(imp', ...
'RowNames',f.CurrentAxes.YTickLabel,'VariableNames',{'Predictor Importance'}))
ans=2×1 table
Predictor Importance
____________________

MVE_BVTD          0.088412
RE_TA            0.0018061

Train a regression model and create a lime object that uses a linear simple model. When you create a lime object, if you do not specify a query point and the number of important predictors, then the software generates samples of a synthetic data set but does not fit a simple model. Use the object function fit to fit a simple model for a query point. Then display the coefficients of the fitted linear simple model by using the object function plot.

Load the carbig data set, which contains measurements of cars made in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Create a table containing the predictor variables Acceleration, Cylinders, and so on, as well as the response variable MPG.

tbl = table(Acceleration,Cylinders,Displacement,Horsepower,Model_Year,Weight,MPG);

Removing missing values in a training set can help reduce memory consumption and speed up training for the fitrkernel function. Remove missing values in tbl.

tbl = rmmissing(tbl);

Create a table of predictor variables by removing the response variable from tbl.

tblX = removevars(tbl,'MPG');

Train a blackbox model of MPG by using the fitrkernel function.

rng('default') % For reproducibility
mdl = fitrkernel(tblX,tbl.MPG,'CategoricalPredictors',[2 5]);

Create a lime object. Specify a predictor data set because mdl does not contain predictor data.

results = lime(mdl,tblX)
results =
lime with properties:

BlackboxModel: [1x1 RegressionKernel]
DataLocality: 'global'
CategoricalPredictors: [2 5]
Type: 'regression'
X: [392x6 table]
QueryPoint: []
NumImportantPredictors: []
NumSyntheticData: 5000
SyntheticData: [5000x6 table]
Fitted: [5000x1 double]
SimpleModel: []
ImportantPredictors: []
BlackboxFitted: []
SimpleModelFitted: []

results contains the generated synthetic data set. The SimpleModel property is empty ([]).

Fit a linear simple model for the first observation in tblX. Specify the number of important predictors to find as 3.

queryPoint = tblX(1,:)
queryPoint=1×6 table
Acceleration    Cylinders    Displacement    Horsepower    Model_Year    Weight
____________    _________    ____________    __________    __________    ______

12             8            307            130            70         3504

results = fit(results,queryPoint,3);

Plot the lime object results by using the object function plot. To display an existing underscore in any predictor name, change the TickLabelInterpreter value of the axes to 'none'.

f = plot(results);
f.CurrentAxes.TickLabelInterpreter = 'none';

The plot displays two predictions for the query point, which correspond to the BlackboxFitted property and the SimpleModelFitted property of results.

The horizontal bar graph shows the coefficient values of the simple model, sorted by their absolute values. LIME finds Horsepower, Model_Year, and Cylinders as important predictors for the query point.

Model_Year and Cylinders are categorical predictors that have multiple categories. For a linear simple model, the software creates one less dummy variable than the number of categories for each categorical predictor. The bar graph displays only the most important dummy variable. You can check the coefficients of the other dummy variables using the SimpleModel property of results. Display the sorted coefficient values, including all categorical dummy variables.

[~,I] = sort(abs(results.SimpleModel.Beta),'descend');
table(results.SimpleModel.ExpandedPredictorNames(I)',results.SimpleModel.Beta(I), ...
'VariableNames',{'Exteded Predictor Name','Coefficient'})
ans=17×2 table
Exteded Predictor Name      Coefficient
__________________________    ___________

{'Horsepower'            }    -3.4485e-05
{'Model_Year (74 vs. 70)'}    -6.1279e-07
{'Model_Year (80 vs. 70)'}     -4.015e-07
{'Model_Year (81 vs. 70)'}     3.4176e-07
{'Model_Year (82 vs. 70)'}    -2.2483e-07
{'Cylinders (6 vs. 8)'   }    -1.9024e-07
{'Model_Year (76 vs. 70)'}     1.8136e-07
{'Cylinders (5 vs. 8)'   }     1.7461e-07
{'Model_Year (71 vs. 70)'}      1.558e-07
{'Model_Year (75 vs. 70)'}     1.5456e-07
{'Model_Year (77 vs. 70)'}      1.521e-07
{'Model_Year (78 vs. 70)'}     1.4272e-07
{'Model_Year (72 vs. 70)'}     6.7001e-08
{'Model_Year (73 vs. 70)'}     4.7214e-08
{'Cylinders (4 vs. 8)'   }     4.5118e-08
{'Model_Year (79 vs. 70)'}    -2.2598e-08
⋮

Train a regression model and create a lime object using a function handle to the predict function of the model. Use the object function fit to fit a simple model for the specified query point. Then display the coefficients of the fitted linear simple model by using the object function plot.

Load the carbig data set, which contains measurements of cars made in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Create a table containing the predictor variables Acceleration, Cylinders, and so on.

tbl = table(Acceleration,Cylinders,Displacement,Horsepower,Model_Year,Weight);

Train a blackbox model of MPG by using the TreeBagger function.

rng('default') % For reproducibility
Mdl = TreeBagger(100,tbl,MPG,'Method','regression','CategoricalPredictors',[2 5]);

lime does not support a TreeBagger object directly, so you cannot specify the first input argument (blackbox model) of lime as a TreeBagger object. Instead, you can use a function handle to the predict function. You can also specify options of the predict function using name-value arguments of the function.

Create the function handle to the predict function of the TreeBagger object Mdl. Specify the array of tree indices to use as 1:50.

myPredict = @(tbl) predict(Mdl,tbl,'Trees',1:50);

Create a lime object using the function handle myPredict. When you specify a blackbox model as a function handle, you must provide the predictor data and specify the 'Type' name-value argument. tbl includes categorical predictors (Cylinder and Model_Year) with the double data type. By default, lime does not treat variables with the double data type as categorical predictors. Specify the second (Cylinder) and fifth (Model_Year) variables as categorical predictors.

results = lime(myPredict,tbl,'Type','regression','CategoricalPredictors',[2 5]);

Fit a linear simple model for the first observation in tbl. To display an existing underscore in any predictor name, change the TickLabelInterpreter value of the axes to 'none'.

results = fit(results,tbl(1,:),4);
f = plot(results);
f.CurrentAxes.TickLabelInterpreter = 'none';

lime finds Horsepower, Displacement, Cylinders, and Model_Year as important predictors.

expand all

expand all

## References

[1] Ribeiro, Marco Tulio, S. Singh, and C. Guestrin. "'Why Should I Trust You?': Explaining the Predictions of Any Classifier." In Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining, 1135–44. San Francisco, California: ACM, 2016.

[2] Świrszcz, Grzegorz, Naoki Abe, and Aurélie C. Lozano. "Grouped Orthogonal Matching Pursuit for Variable Selection and Prediction." Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (2009): 1150–58.

[3] Lozano, Aurélie C., Grzegorz Świrszcz, and Naoki Abe. "Group Orthogonal Matching Pursuit for Logistic Regression." Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (2011): 452–60.