Visual exploration of classification models for various data types in risk assessment

  • Authors:
  • Malgorzata Migut;Marcel Worring

  • Affiliations:
  • Intelligent Systems Lab Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands;Intelligent Systems Lab Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

  • Venue:
  • Information Visualization - Special issue on Best Papers of Visual Analytics Science and Technology (VAST) 2010
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

In risk assessment applications well-informed decisions need to be made based on large amounts of multidimensional data. In many domains, not only the risk of a wrong decision, but also of the trade-off between the costs of possible decisions are of utmost importance. In this paper we describe a framework to support the decision-making process, which tightly integrates interactive visual exploration with machine learning. The proposed approach uses a series of interactive 2D visualizations of numerical and ordinal data combined with visualization of classification models. These series of visual elements are linked to the classifier's performance, which is visualized using an interactive performance curve. This interaction allows the decision-maker to steer the classification model and instantly identify the critical, cost-changing data elements in the various linked visualizations. The critical data elements are represented as images in order to trigger associations related to the knowledge of the expert. In this way the data visualization and classification results are not only linked together, but are also linked back to the classification model. Such a visual analytics framework allows the user to interactively explore the costs of his decisions for different settings of the model and, accordingly, use the most suitable classification model. More informed and reliable decisions result. A case study in the forensic psychiatry domain reveals the usefulness of the suggested approach.