Understanding Confusion Matrix Accuracy in Machine Learning

Author

Posted Nov 19, 2024

Reads 185

Person Facing a Big Screen with Numbers
Credit: pexels.com, Person Facing a Big Screen with Numbers

A confusion matrix is a table used to evaluate the performance of a classification model, providing a clear picture of both true and false positives and negatives.

The matrix helps identify the accuracy of a model by comparing predicted outcomes to actual outcomes.

Accuracy is not the only metric to consider, as it can be misleading in certain situations.

For example, a model with high accuracy may still have a significant number of false positives or false negatives.

What Is a Confusion Matrix?

A confusion matrix is a performance evaluation tool in machine learning that helps us understand how well a classification model is doing. It's a matrix that displays the number of true positives, true negatives, false positives, and false negatives.

A Confusion matrix is an N x N matrix used for evaluating the performance of a classification model, where N is the total number of target classes. This means that the matrix will have a specific number of rows and columns based on the number of classes we're trying to predict.

Credit: youtube.com, Machine Learning Fundamentals: The Confusion Matrix

The matrix compares the actual target values with those predicted by the machine learning model, giving us a clear picture of the model's performance. For a binary classification problem, we would have a 2 x 2 matrix.

Here's a breakdown of the terms you'll see in a confusion matrix:

  • True Positive (TP): The model correctly predicted a positive outcome (the actual outcome was positive).
  • True Negative (TN): The model correctly predicted a negative outcome (the actual outcome was negative).
  • False Positive (FP): The model incorrectly predicted a positive outcome (the actual outcome was negative). Also known as a Type I error.
  • False Negative (FN): The model incorrectly predicted a negative outcome (the actual outcome was positive). Also known as a Type II error.

For example, in a binary classification problem, the confusion matrix might look like this:

Importance of Confusion Matrix in ML

A confusion matrix is a performance metric for machine learning classification problems with two or more classes as output. It's great for determining Recall, Precision, Specificity, Accuracy, and the AUC-ROC Curve.

The model's overall accuracy is similar and high when using both the train and test data sets. Even the metrics at the class level are similar and high.

We may conclude that the SVC model has been properly calibrated and is capable of making accurate predictions on the test data set in terms of both general and class-level accuracy. Essentially, a confusion matrix can help machine learning classification models perform better and faster.

Credit: youtube.com, Machine Learning Fundamentals: The Confusion Matrix

A confusion matrix is especially helpful in evaluating a model's performance beyond basic accuracy metrics, especially when there is an uneven class distribution in a dataset.

Here are the key components of a confusion matrix:

These components can be used to calculate the model's Recall, Precision, Specificity, Accuracy, and F1-score.

Calculating Confusion Matrix Accuracy

Calculating the accuracy of a confusion matrix is a straightforward process. It's the ratio of total correct instances to the total instances.

To calculate accuracy, you'll need to know the true positives (TP), true negatives (TN), false positives (FP), and false negatives (FN). These values are obtained from the confusion matrix, which is structured into a table with rows representing predicted classes and columns representing real-world classes.

Here's how to calculate accuracy using the formula: Accuracy = (TP + TN) / (TP + TN + FP + FN). This formula is derived from the total correct instances (TP + TN) divided by the total instances (TP + TN + FP + FN).

The accuracy of a model is a key performance metric, and it's essential to understand how to calculate it correctly. By using the confusion matrix and the formula above, you can determine the accuracy of your model and make informed decisions about its performance.

Calculation

Credit: youtube.com, Confusion Matrix Solved Example Accuracy Precision Recall F1 Score Prevalence by Mahesh Huddar

To calculate the confusion matrix, you'll need a validation dataset or test dataset with expected outcome values. This dataset will serve as the foundation for your calculations.

For each row in the dataset, make a prediction using your classification model. This step is crucial in understanding what your model gets right and what types of errors it makes.

Counting the expected outcomes and predictions involves tallying the total number of correct predictions in each class and organizing incorrect predictions for each class by the predicted class.

The confusion matrix is structured into a table, with rows corresponding to a predicted class and columns representing a real-world class. The total number of correct predictions for a class are entered into the expected row and predicted column for that class value.

Similarly, the sum number of wrong predictions for a class are entered into the expected row and predicted column for that class value.

Credit: youtube.com, Confusion Matrix ll Accuracy,Error Rate,Precision,Recall Explained with Solved Example in Hindi

Here's a simplified example of a confusion matrix for a 2-class classification problem:

To calculate accuracy, you'll need to know the true positives (TP), true negatives (TN), false positives (FP), and false negatives (FN). Accuracy is the ratio of total correct instances to the total instances, and can be calculated using the following formula:

Accuracy = (TP + TN) / (TP + TN + FP + FN)

This formula provides a clear and concise way to measure the performance of your model.

Scaling

Scaling a confusion matrix is a crucial step in evaluating a model's performance, and it's done by finding the accuracy of a model with a hands-on demo on confusion matrix with Python.

To scale a confusion matrix, we need to understand what it is and its inner working, which we'll explore in this article.

We find the accuracy of a model by using a confusion matrix, which is a table used to evaluate the performance of a classification model.

The accuracy of a model is calculated by dividing the number of correct predictions by the total number of predictions made.

Precision vs Recall

Credit: youtube.com, Never Forget Again! // Precision vs Recall with a Clear Example of Precision and Recall

Precision and recall are two essential metrics in evaluating the performance of a classification model. Precision tells us how many of the correctly predicted cases actually turned out to be positive, and it's useful in cases where false positives are a higher concern than false negatives.

Precision is a useful metric in cases where false positives are a higher concern than false negatives, such as in music or video recommendation systems and e-commerce websites. Wrong results could lead to customer churn and be harmful to the business.

Recall, on the other hand, tells us how many of the actual positive cases we were able to predict correctly with our model. It's useful in cases where false negatives trump false positives, such as in medical cases where it doesn't matter whether we raise a false alarm, but the actual positive cases should not go undetected.

Recall is a crucial metric in critical scenarios, such as dealing with a contagious virus, where we aim to avoid mistakenly releasing an infected person into the healthy population, potentially spreading the virus.

Intriguing read: Recall Confusion Matrix

Credit: youtube.com, Precision, Recall, F1 score, True Positive|Deep Learning Tutorial 19 (Tensorflow2.0, Keras & Python)

In cases where there is no clear distinction between whether precision is more important or recall, we can combine them to get a better understanding of our model's performance.

Here's a summary of the key differences between precision and recall:

By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of precision and recall, we can choose the right metric for our specific problem and evaluate our model's performance more effectively.

Metrics

Accuracy is a crucial metric to evaluate the performance of a classifier. It's the sum of all true values divided by total values, giving us a percentage of correctly classified values.

For example, in a classifier that classifies people based on whether they speak English or Spanish, the accuracy is 88.23%. This means that out of all the values, 88.23% were correctly classified.

Precision is another important metric that calculates the model's ability to classify positive values correctly. It's the true positives divided by the total number of predicted positive values.

Credit: youtube.com, Machine Learning Fundamentals: The Confusion Matrix

In the same example, the precision is 87.75%. This means that out of all the people predicted to speak Spanish, 87.75% actually spoke Spanish.

Recall, on the other hand, calculates the model's ability to predict positive values. It's the true positives divided by the total number of actual positive values.

In this example, the recall is 89.83%. This means that out of all the people who actually speak Spanish, 89.83% were predicted to speak Spanish.

The F1-Score is a harmonic mean of precision and recall, giving us a combined idea about these two metrics. It's maximum when precision is equal to recall.

The F1-Score in this example is 88.77%, which balances precision and recall. It's useful when we need to take both precision and recall into account.

Here's a summary of the metrics we've discussed:

Python

In Python, you can calculate a confusion matrix using the neural network library, which returns the result as an array.

Credit: youtube.com, Precision, Recall, F1 score, True Positive|Deep Learning Tutorial 19 (Tensorflow2.0, Keras & Python)

You can also use the Scikit-learn library, which has two great functions: confusion_matrix() and classification_report(). The confusion_matrix() function returns the values of the Confusion matrix, with the rows as Actual values and the columns as Predicted values.

Sklearn's classification_report() outputs precision, recall, and f1-score for each target class, along with some extra values: micro avg, macro avg, and weighted avg. The micro average is the precision/recall/f1-score calculated for all the classes.

To display the confusion matrix, you can use the ravel() method of the confusion_matrix function, which gives you the True Positive, True Negative, False Positive, and False Negative values.

Here are some common metrics you can find using the classification_report function:

In a multi-class classification problem, you can use the confusion_matrix function to display the confusion matrix, and then use the classification_report function to print the classification report, which includes precision, recall, and f1-score for each class.

Example and Interpretation

A confusion matrix is a table used to evaluate the performance of a classification model, like the one we're discussing. It's a simple yet powerful tool that helps us understand how well our model is doing.

Credit: youtube.com, Confusion Matrix Explained

The confusion matrix is made up of four key elements: True Positive (TP), True Negative (TN), False Positive (FP), and False Negative (FN). Let's break each of these down with an example.

A True Positive (TP) occurs when the model correctly identifies an image as a particular animal, such as a cat, dog, or horse. For instance, if we have a picture of a cat and the model correctly identifies it as a cat, that's a True Positive.

A True Negative (TN) happens when the model correctly identifies an image as not being a particular animal. For example, if we have a picture of a car and the model correctly identifies it as not a cat, not a dog, and not a horse, that's a True Negative.

In our example, we have 10 images that were not cats, dogs, or horses, and the model correctly classified all of them as "not cat", "not dog", and "not horse." This means we have 10 True Negative counts for each class.

Here's a breakdown of the counts:

We can see from this table that the model did a great job of identifying cats, with 8 out of 10 being correctly identified. However, it struggled a bit with dogs, incorrectly identifying 2 as cats.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is confusion matrix better than accuracy?

A confusion matrix provides more detailed insights than accuracy alone by calculating precision and recall, giving a clearer picture of a model's performance. This makes it a more comprehensive tool for evaluating classification accuracy and model effectiveness.

Landon Fanetti

Writer

Landon Fanetti is a prolific author with many years of experience writing blog posts. He has a keen interest in technology, finance, and politics, which are reflected in his writings. Landon's unique perspective on current events and his ability to communicate complex ideas in a simple manner make him a favorite among readers.

Love What You Read? Stay Updated!

Join our community for insights, tips, and more.