.. DO NOT EDIT. .. THIS FILE WAS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED BY SPHINX-GALLERY. .. TO MAKE CHANGES, EDIT THE SOURCE PYTHON FILE: .. "auto_examples/inspection/plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation.py" .. LINE NUMBERS ARE GIVEN BELOW. .. only:: html .. note:: :class: sphx-glr-download-link-note Click :ref:`here ` to download the full example code or to run this example in your browser via Binder .. rst-class:: sphx-glr-example-title .. _sphx_glr_auto_examples_inspection_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation.py: ====================================================================== Common pitfalls in the interpretation of coefficients of linear models ====================================================================== In linear models, the target value is modeled as a linear combination of the features (see the :ref:`linear_model` User Guide section for a description of a set of linear models available in scikit-learn). Coefficients in multiple linear models represent the relationship between the given feature, :math:`X_i` and the target, :math:`y`, assuming that all the other features remain constant (`conditional dependence `_). This is different from plotting :math:`X_i` versus :math:`y` and fitting a linear relationship: in that case all possible values of the other features are taken into account in the estimation (marginal dependence). This example will provide some hints in interpreting coefficient in linear models, pointing at problems that arise when either the linear model is not appropriate to describe the dataset, or when features are correlated. We will use data from the `"Current Population Survey" `_ from 1985 to predict wage as a function of various features such as experience, age, or education. .. contents:: :local: :depth: 1 .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 33-39 .. code-block:: default import numpy as np import scipy as sp import pandas as pd import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import seaborn as sns .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 40-46 The dataset: wages ------------------ We fetch the data from `OpenML `_. Note that setting the parameter `as_frame` to True will retrieve the data as a pandas dataframe. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 46-51 .. code-block:: default from sklearn.datasets import fetch_openml survey = fetch_openml(data_id=534, as_frame=True) .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 52-54 Then, we identify features `X` and targets `y`: the column WAGE is our target variable (i.e., the variable which we want to predict). .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 54-58 .. code-block:: default X = survey.data[survey.feature_names] X.describe(include="all") .. raw:: html
EDUCATION SOUTH SEX EXPERIENCE UNION AGE RACE OCCUPATION SECTOR MARR
count 534.000000 534 534 534.000000 534 534.000000 534 534 534 534
unique NaN 2 2 NaN 2 NaN 3 6 3 2
top NaN no male NaN not_member NaN White Other Other Married
freq NaN 378 289 NaN 438 NaN 440 156 411 350
mean 13.018727 NaN NaN 17.822097 NaN 36.833333 NaN NaN NaN NaN
std 2.615373 NaN NaN 12.379710 NaN 11.726573 NaN NaN NaN NaN
min 2.000000 NaN NaN 0.000000 NaN 18.000000 NaN NaN NaN NaN
25% 12.000000 NaN NaN 8.000000 NaN 28.000000 NaN NaN NaN NaN
50% 12.000000 NaN NaN 15.000000 NaN 35.000000 NaN NaN NaN NaN
75% 15.000000 NaN NaN 26.000000 NaN 44.000000 NaN NaN NaN NaN
max 18.000000 NaN NaN 55.000000 NaN 64.000000 NaN NaN NaN NaN


.. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 59-62 Note that the dataset contains categorical and numerical variables. We will need to take this into account when preprocessing the dataset thereafter. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 62-65 .. code-block:: default X.head() .. raw:: html
EDUCATION SOUTH SEX EXPERIENCE UNION AGE RACE OCCUPATION SECTOR MARR
0 8.0 no female 21.0 not_member 35.0 Hispanic Other Manufacturing Married
1 9.0 no female 42.0 not_member 57.0 White Other Manufacturing Married
2 12.0 no male 1.0 not_member 19.0 White Other Manufacturing Unmarried
3 12.0 no male 4.0 not_member 22.0 White Other Other Unmarried
4 12.0 no male 17.0 not_member 35.0 White Other Other Married


.. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 66-68 Our target for prediction: the wage. Wages are described as floating-point number in dollars per hour. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 68-72 .. code-block:: default y = survey.target.values.ravel() survey.target.head() .. rst-class:: sphx-glr-script-out .. code-block:: none 0 5.10 1 4.95 2 6.67 3 4.00 4 7.50 Name: WAGE, dtype: float64 .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 73-78 We split the sample into a train and a test dataset. Only the train dataset will be used in the following exploratory analysis. This is a way to emulate a real situation where predictions are performed on an unknown target, and we don't want our analysis and decisions to be biased by our knowledge of the test data. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 78-83 .. code-block:: default from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(X, y, random_state=42) .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 84-89 First, let's get some insights by looking at the variable distributions and at the pairwise relationships between them. Only numerical variables will be used. In the following plot, each dot represents a sample. .. _marginal_dependencies: .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 89-94 .. code-block:: default train_dataset = X_train.copy() train_dataset.insert(0, "WAGE", y_train) _ = sns.pairplot(train_dataset, kind="reg", diag_kind="kde") .. image-sg:: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_001.png :alt: plot linear model coefficient interpretation :srcset: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_001.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 95-114 Looking closely at the WAGE distribution reveals that it has a long tail. For this reason, we should take its logarithm to turn it approximately into a normal distribution (linear models such as ridge or lasso work best for a normal distribution of error). The WAGE is increasing when EDUCATION is increasing. Note that the dependence between WAGE and EDUCATION represented here is a marginal dependence, i.e., it describes the behavior of a specific variable without keeping the others fixed. Also, the EXPERIENCE and AGE are strongly linearly correlated. .. _the-pipeline: The machine-learning pipeline ----------------------------- To design our machine-learning pipeline, we first manually check the type of data that we are dealing with: .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 114-117 .. code-block:: default survey.data.info() .. rst-class:: sphx-glr-script-out .. code-block:: none RangeIndex: 534 entries, 0 to 533 Data columns (total 10 columns): # Column Non-Null Count Dtype --- ------ -------------- ----- 0 EDUCATION 534 non-null float64 1 SOUTH 534 non-null category 2 SEX 534 non-null category 3 EXPERIENCE 534 non-null float64 4 UNION 534 non-null category 5 AGE 534 non-null float64 6 RACE 534 non-null category 7 OCCUPATION 534 non-null category 8 SECTOR 534 non-null category 9 MARR 534 non-null category dtypes: category(7), float64(3) memory usage: 17.2 KB .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 118-129 As seen previously, the dataset contains columns with different data types and we need to apply a specific preprocessing for each data types. In particular categorical variables cannot be included in linear model if not coded as integers first. In addition, to avoid categorical features to be treated as ordered values, we need to one-hot-encode them. Our pre-processor will - one-hot encode (i.e., generate a column by category) the categorical columns, only for non-binary categorical variables; - as a first approach (we will see after how the normalisation of numerical values will affect our discussion), keep numerical values as they are. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 129-142 .. code-block:: default from sklearn.compose import make_column_transformer from sklearn.preprocessing import OneHotEncoder categorical_columns = ["RACE", "OCCUPATION", "SECTOR", "MARR", "UNION", "SEX", "SOUTH"] numerical_columns = ["EDUCATION", "EXPERIENCE", "AGE"] preprocessor = make_column_transformer( (OneHotEncoder(drop="if_binary"), categorical_columns), remainder="passthrough", verbose_feature_names_out=False, # avoid to prepend the preprocessor names ) .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 143-145 To describe the dataset as a linear model we use a ridge regressor with a very small regularization and to model the logarithm of the WAGE. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 145-157 .. code-block:: default from sklearn.pipeline import make_pipeline from sklearn.linear_model import Ridge from sklearn.compose import TransformedTargetRegressor model = make_pipeline( preprocessor, TransformedTargetRegressor( regressor=Ridge(alpha=1e-10), func=np.log10, inverse_func=sp.special.exp10 ), ) .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 158-162 Processing the dataset ---------------------- First, we fit the model. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 162-165 .. code-block:: default model.fit(X_train, y_train) .. raw:: html
Pipeline(steps=[('columntransformer',
                     ColumnTransformer(remainder='passthrough',
                                       transformers=[('onehotencoder',
                                                      OneHotEncoder(drop='if_binary'),
                                                      ['RACE', 'OCCUPATION',
                                                       'SECTOR', 'MARR', 'UNION',
                                                       'SEX', 'SOUTH'])],
                                       verbose_feature_names_out=False)),
                    ('transformedtargetregressor',
                     TransformedTargetRegressor(func=<ufunc 'log10'>,
                                                inverse_func=<ufunc 'exp10'>,
                                                regressor=Ridge(alpha=1e-10)))])
In a Jupyter environment, please rerun this cell to show the HTML representation or trust the notebook.
On GitHub, the HTML representation is unable to render, please try loading this page with nbviewer.org.


.. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 166-169 Then we check the performance of the computed model plotting its predictions on the test set and computing, for example, the median absolute error of the model. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 169-180 .. code-block:: default from sklearn.metrics import median_absolute_error y_pred = model.predict(X_train) mae = median_absolute_error(y_train, y_pred) string_score = f"MAE on training set: {mae:.2f} $/hour" y_pred = model.predict(X_test) mae = median_absolute_error(y_test, y_pred) string_score += f"\nMAE on testing set: {mae:.2f} $/hour" .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 181-191 .. code-block:: default fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(5, 5)) plt.scatter(y_test, y_pred) ax.plot([0, 1], [0, 1], transform=ax.transAxes, ls="--", c="red") plt.text(3, 20, string_score) plt.title("Ridge model, small regularization") plt.ylabel("Model predictions") plt.xlabel("Truths") plt.xlim([0, 27]) _ = plt.ylim([0, 27]) .. image-sg:: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_002.png :alt: Ridge model, small regularization :srcset: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_002.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 192-206 The model learnt is far from being a good model making accurate predictions: this is obvious when looking at the plot above, where good predictions should lie on the red line. In the following section, we will interpret the coefficients of the model. While we do so, we should keep in mind that any conclusion we draw is about the model that we build, rather than about the true (real-world) generative process of the data. Interpreting coefficients: scale matters ---------------------------------------- First of all, we can take a look to the values of the coefficients of the regressor we have fitted. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 206-216 .. code-block:: default feature_names = model[:-1].get_feature_names_out() coefs = pd.DataFrame( model[-1].regressor_.coef_, columns=["Coefficients"], index=feature_names, ) coefs .. raw:: html
Coefficients
RACE_Hispanic -0.013531
RACE_Other -0.009087
RACE_White 0.022582
OCCUPATION_Clerical 0.000061
OCCUPATION_Management 0.090544
OCCUPATION_Other -0.025085
OCCUPATION_Professional 0.071980
OCCUPATION_Sales -0.046620
OCCUPATION_Service -0.091037
SECTOR_Construction -0.000165
SECTOR_Manufacturing 0.031287
SECTOR_Other -0.030993
MARR_Unmarried -0.032405
UNION_not_member -0.117154
SEX_male 0.090808
SOUTH_yes -0.033823
EDUCATION 0.054699
EXPERIENCE 0.035005
AGE -0.030867


.. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 217-229 The AGE coefficient is expressed in "dollars/hour per living years" while the EDUCATION one is expressed in "dollars/hour per years of education". This representation of the coefficients has the benefit of making clear the practical predictions of the model: an increase of :math:`1` year in AGE means a decrease of :math:`0.030867` dollars/hour, while an increase of :math:`1` year in EDUCATION means an increase of :math:`0.054699` dollars/hour. On the other hand, categorical variables (as UNION or SEX) are adimensional numbers taking either the value 0 or 1. Their coefficients are expressed in dollars/hour. Then, we cannot compare the magnitude of different coefficients since the features have different natural scales, and hence value ranges, because of their different unit of measure. This is more visible if we plot the coefficients. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 229-236 .. code-block:: default coefs.plot.barh(figsize=(9, 7)) plt.title("Ridge model, small regularization") plt.axvline(x=0, color=".5") plt.xlabel("Raw coefficient values") plt.subplots_adjust(left=0.3) .. image-sg:: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_003.png :alt: Ridge model, small regularization :srcset: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_003.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 237-248 Indeed, from the plot above the most important factor in determining WAGE appears to be the variable UNION, even if our intuition might tell us that variables like EXPERIENCE should have more impact. Looking at the coefficient plot to gauge feature importance can be misleading as some of them vary on a small scale, while others, like AGE, varies a lot more, several decades. This is visible if we compare the standard deviations of different features. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 248-258 .. code-block:: default X_train_preprocessed = pd.DataFrame( model[:-1].transform(X_train), columns=feature_names ) X_train_preprocessed.std(axis=0).plot.barh(figsize=(9, 7)) plt.title("Feature ranges") plt.xlabel("Std. dev. of feature values") plt.subplots_adjust(left=0.3) .. image-sg:: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_004.png :alt: Feature ranges :srcset: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_004.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 259-269 Multiplying the coefficients by the standard deviation of the related feature would reduce all the coefficients to the same unit of measure. As we will see :ref:`after` this is equivalent to normalize numerical variables to their standard deviation, as :math:`y = \sum{coef_i \times X_i} = \sum{(coef_i \times std_i) \times (X_i / std_i)}`. In that way, we emphasize that the greater the variance of a feature, the larger the weight of the corresponding coefficient on the output, all else being equal. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 269-281 .. code-block:: default coefs = pd.DataFrame( model[-1].regressor_.coef_ * X_train_preprocessed.std(axis=0), columns=["Coefficient importance"], index=feature_names, ) coefs.plot(kind="barh", figsize=(9, 7)) plt.xlabel("Coefficient values corrected by the feature's std. dev.") plt.title("Ridge model, small regularization") plt.axvline(x=0, color=".5") plt.subplots_adjust(left=0.3) .. image-sg:: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_005.png :alt: Ridge model, small regularization :srcset: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_005.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 282-309 Now that the coefficients have been scaled, we can safely compare them. .. warning:: Why does the plot above suggest that an increase in age leads to a decrease in wage? Why the :ref:`initial pairplot ` is telling the opposite? The plot above tells us about dependencies between a specific feature and the target when all other features remain constant, i.e., **conditional dependencies**. An increase of the AGE will induce a decrease of the WAGE when all other features remain constant. On the contrary, an increase of the EXPERIENCE will induce an increase of the WAGE when all other features remain constant. Also, AGE, EXPERIENCE and EDUCATION are the three variables that most influence the model. Checking the variability of the coefficients -------------------------------------------- We can check the coefficient variability through cross-validation: it is a form of data perturbation (related to `resampling `_). If coefficients vary significantly when changing the input dataset their robustness is not guaranteed, and they should probably be interpreted with caution. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 309-331 .. code-block:: default from sklearn.model_selection import cross_validate from sklearn.model_selection import RepeatedKFold cv = RepeatedKFold(n_splits=5, n_repeats=5, random_state=0) cv_model = cross_validate( model, X, y, cv=cv, return_estimator=True, n_jobs=2, ) coefs = pd.DataFrame( [ est[-1].regressor_.coef_ * est[:-1].transform(X.iloc[train_idx]).std(axis=0) for est, (train_idx, _) in zip(cv_model["estimator"], cv.split(X, y)) ], columns=feature_names, ) .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 332-341 .. code-block:: default plt.figure(figsize=(9, 7)) sns.stripplot(data=coefs, orient="h", color="k", alpha=0.5) sns.boxplot(data=coefs, orient="h", color="cyan", saturation=0.5, whis=10) plt.axvline(x=0, color=".5") plt.xlabel("Coefficient importance") plt.title("Coefficient importance and its variability") plt.suptitle("Ridge model, small regularization") plt.subplots_adjust(left=0.3) .. image-sg:: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_006.png :alt: Ridge model, small regularization, Coefficient importance and its variability :srcset: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_006.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 342-354 The problem of correlated variables ----------------------------------- The AGE and EXPERIENCE coefficients are affected by strong variability which might be due to the collinearity between the 2 features: as AGE and EXPERIENCE vary together in the data, their effect is difficult to tease apart. To verify this interpretation we plot the variability of the AGE and EXPERIENCE coefficient. .. _covariation: .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 354-363 .. code-block:: default plt.ylabel("Age coefficient") plt.xlabel("Experience coefficient") plt.grid(True) plt.xlim(-0.4, 0.5) plt.ylim(-0.4, 0.5) plt.scatter(coefs["AGE"], coefs["EXPERIENCE"]) _ = plt.title("Co-variations of coefficients for AGE and EXPERIENCE across folds") .. image-sg:: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_007.png :alt: Co-variations of coefficients for AGE and EXPERIENCE across folds :srcset: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_007.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 364-369 Two regions are populated: when the EXPERIENCE coefficient is positive the AGE one is negative and vice-versa. To go further we remove one of the 2 features and check what is the impact on the model stability. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 369-390 .. code-block:: default column_to_drop = ["AGE"] cv_model = cross_validate( model, X.drop(columns=column_to_drop), y, cv=cv, return_estimator=True, n_jobs=2, ) coefs = pd.DataFrame( [ est[-1].regressor_.coef_ * est[:-1].transform(X.drop(columns=column_to_drop).iloc[train_idx]).std(axis=0) for est, (train_idx, _) in zip(cv_model["estimator"], cv.split(X, y)) ], columns=feature_names[:-1], ) .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 391-400 .. code-block:: default plt.figure(figsize=(9, 7)) sns.stripplot(data=coefs, orient="h", color="k", alpha=0.5) sns.boxplot(data=coefs, orient="h", color="cyan", saturation=0.5) plt.axvline(x=0, color=".5") plt.title("Coefficient importance and its variability") plt.xlabel("Coefficient importance") plt.suptitle("Ridge model, small regularization, AGE dropped") plt.subplots_adjust(left=0.3) .. image-sg:: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_008.png :alt: Ridge model, small regularization, AGE dropped, Coefficient importance and its variability :srcset: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_008.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 401-416 The estimation of the EXPERIENCE coefficient now shows a much reduced variability. EXPERIENCE remains important for all models trained during cross-validation. .. _scaling_num: Preprocessing numerical variables --------------------------------- As said above (see ":ref:`the-pipeline`"), we could also choose to scale numerical values before training the model. This can be useful when we apply a similar amount of regularization to all of them in the ridge. The preprocessor is redefined in order to subtract the mean and scale variables to unit variance. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 416-424 .. code-block:: default from sklearn.preprocessing import StandardScaler preprocessor = make_column_transformer( (OneHotEncoder(drop="if_binary"), categorical_columns), (StandardScaler(), numerical_columns), ) .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 425-426 The model will stay unchanged. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 426-435 .. code-block:: default model = make_pipeline( preprocessor, TransformedTargetRegressor( regressor=Ridge(alpha=1e-10), func=np.log10, inverse_func=sp.special.exp10 ), ) model.fit(X_train, y_train) .. raw:: html
Pipeline(steps=[('columntransformer',
                     ColumnTransformer(transformers=[('onehotencoder',
                                                      OneHotEncoder(drop='if_binary'),
                                                      ['RACE', 'OCCUPATION',
                                                       'SECTOR', 'MARR', 'UNION',
                                                       'SEX', 'SOUTH']),
                                                     ('standardscaler',
                                                      StandardScaler(),
                                                      ['EDUCATION', 'EXPERIENCE',
                                                       'AGE'])])),
                    ('transformedtargetregressor',
                     TransformedTargetRegressor(func=<ufunc 'log10'>,
                                                inverse_func=<ufunc 'exp10'>,
                                                regressor=Ridge(alpha=1e-10)))])
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On GitHub, the HTML representation is unable to render, please try loading this page with nbviewer.org.


.. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 436-439 Again, we check the performance of the computed model using, for example, the median absolute error of the model and the R squared coefficient. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 439-447 .. code-block:: default y_pred = model.predict(X_train) mae = median_absolute_error(y_train, y_pred) string_score = f"MAE on training set: {mae:.2f} $/hour" y_pred = model.predict(X_test) mae = median_absolute_error(y_test, y_pred) string_score += f"\nMAE on testing set: {mae:.2f} $/hour" .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 448-460 .. code-block:: default fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(6, 6)) plt.scatter(y_test, y_pred) ax.plot([0, 1], [0, 1], transform=ax.transAxes, ls="--", c="red") plt.text(3, 20, string_score) plt.title("Ridge model, small regularization, normalized variables") plt.ylabel("Model predictions") plt.xlabel("Truths") plt.xlim([0, 27]) _ = plt.ylim([0, 27]) .. image-sg:: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_009.png :alt: Ridge model, small regularization, normalized variables :srcset: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_009.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 461-463 For the coefficient analysis, scaling is not needed this time because it was performed during the preprocessing step. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 463-475 .. code-block:: default coefs = pd.DataFrame( model[-1].regressor_.coef_, columns=["Coefficients importance"], index=feature_names, ) coefs.plot.barh(figsize=(9, 7)) plt.title("Ridge model, small regularization, normalized variables") plt.xlabel("Raw coefficient values") plt.axvline(x=0, color=".5") plt.subplots_adjust(left=0.3) .. image-sg:: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_010.png :alt: Ridge model, small regularization, normalized variables :srcset: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_010.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 476-480 We now inspect the coefficients across several cross-validation folds. As in the above example, we do not need to scale the coefficients by the std. dev. of the feature values since this scaling was already done in the preprocessing step of the pipeline. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 480-493 .. code-block:: default cv_model = cross_validate( model, X, y, cv=cv, return_estimator=True, n_jobs=2, ) coefs = pd.DataFrame( [est[-1].regressor_.coef_ for est in cv_model["estimator"]], columns=feature_names ) .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 494-501 .. code-block:: default plt.figure(figsize=(9, 7)) sns.stripplot(data=coefs, orient="h", color="k", alpha=0.5) sns.boxplot(data=coefs, orient="h", color="cyan", saturation=0.5, whis=10) plt.axvline(x=0, color=".5") plt.title("Coefficient variability") plt.subplots_adjust(left=0.3) .. image-sg:: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_011.png :alt: Coefficient variability :srcset: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_011.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 502-515 The result is quite similar to the non-normalized case. Linear models with regularization --------------------------------- In machine-learning practice, ridge regression is more often used with non-negligible regularization. Above, we limited this regularization to a very little amount. Regularization improves the conditioning of the problem and reduces the variance of the estimates. :class:`~sklearn.linear_model.RidgeCV` applies cross validation in order to determine which value of the regularization parameter (`alpha`) is best suited for prediction. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 515-529 .. code-block:: default from sklearn.linear_model import RidgeCV alphas = np.logspace(-10, 10, 21) # alpha values to be chosen from by cross-validation model = make_pipeline( preprocessor, TransformedTargetRegressor( regressor=RidgeCV(alphas=alphas), func=np.log10, inverse_func=sp.special.exp10, ), ) model.fit(X_train, y_train) .. raw:: html
Pipeline(steps=[('columntransformer',
                     ColumnTransformer(transformers=[('onehotencoder',
                                                      OneHotEncoder(drop='if_binary'),
                                                      ['RACE', 'OCCUPATION',
                                                       'SECTOR', 'MARR', 'UNION',
                                                       'SEX', 'SOUTH']),
                                                     ('standardscaler',
                                                      StandardScaler(),
                                                      ['EDUCATION', 'EXPERIENCE',
                                                       'AGE'])])),
                    ('transformedtargetregressor',
                     TransformedTargetRegressor(func=<ufunc 'log10'>,
                                                inverse_func=<ufunc 'exp10'>,
                                                regressor=RidgeCV(alphas=array([1.e-10, 1.e-09, 1.e-08, 1.e-07, 1.e-06, 1.e-05, 1.e-04, 1.e-03,
           1.e-02, 1.e-01, 1.e+00, 1.e+01, 1.e+02, 1.e+03, 1.e+04, 1.e+05,
           1.e+06, 1.e+07, 1.e+08, 1.e+09, 1.e+10]))))])
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.. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 530-531 First we check which value of :math:`\alpha` has been selected. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 531-534 .. code-block:: default model[-1].regressor_.alpha_ .. rst-class:: sphx-glr-script-out .. code-block:: none 10.0 .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 535-536 Then we check the quality of the predictions. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 536-544 .. code-block:: default y_pred = model.predict(X_train) mae = median_absolute_error(y_train, y_pred) string_score = f"MAE on training set: {mae:.2f} $/hour" y_pred = model.predict(X_test) mae = median_absolute_error(y_test, y_pred) string_score += f"\nMAE on testing set: {mae:.2f} $/hour" .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 545-557 .. code-block:: default fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(6, 6)) plt.scatter(y_test, y_pred) ax.plot([0, 1], [0, 1], transform=ax.transAxes, ls="--", c="red") plt.text(3, 20, string_score) plt.title("Ridge model, optimum regularization, normalized variables") plt.ylabel("Model predictions") plt.xlabel("Truths") plt.xlim([0, 27]) _ = plt.ylim([0, 27]) .. image-sg:: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_012.png :alt: Ridge model, optimum regularization, normalized variables :srcset: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_012.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 558-560 The ability to reproduce the data of the regularized model is similar to the one of the non-regularized model. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 560-572 .. code-block:: default coefs = pd.DataFrame( model[-1].regressor_.coef_, columns=["Coefficients importance"], index=feature_names, ) coefs.plot.barh(figsize=(9, 7)) plt.title("Ridge model, with regularization, normalized variables") plt.xlabel("Raw coefficient values") plt.axvline(x=0, color=".5") plt.subplots_adjust(left=0.3) .. image-sg:: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_013.png :alt: Ridge model, with regularization, normalized variables :srcset: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_013.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 573-586 The coefficients are significantly different. AGE and EXPERIENCE coefficients are both positive but they now have less influence on the prediction. The regularization reduces the influence of correlated variables on the model because the weight is shared between the two predictive variables, so neither alone would have strong weights. On the other hand, the weights obtained with regularization are more stable (see the :ref:`ridge_regression` User Guide section). This increased stability is visible from the plot, obtained from data perturbations, in a cross-validation. This plot can be compared with the :ref:`previous one`. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 586-599 .. code-block:: default cv_model = cross_validate( model, X, y, cv=cv, return_estimator=True, n_jobs=2, ) coefs = pd.DataFrame( [est[-1].regressor_.coef_ for est in cv_model["estimator"]], columns=feature_names ) .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 600-608 .. code-block:: default plt.ylabel("Age coefficient") plt.xlabel("Experience coefficient") plt.grid(True) plt.xlim(-0.4, 0.5) plt.ylim(-0.4, 0.5) plt.scatter(coefs["AGE"], coefs["EXPERIENCE"]) _ = plt.title("Co-variations of coefficients for AGE and EXPERIENCE across folds") .. image-sg:: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_014.png :alt: Co-variations of coefficients for AGE and EXPERIENCE across folds :srcset: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_014.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 609-620 Linear models with sparse coefficients -------------------------------------- Another possibility to take into account correlated variables in the dataset, is to estimate sparse coefficients. In some way we already did it manually when we dropped the AGE column in a previous ridge estimation. Lasso models (see the :ref:`lasso` User Guide section) estimates sparse coefficients. :class:`~sklearn.linear_model.LassoCV` applies cross validation in order to determine which value of the regularization parameter (`alpha`) is best suited for the model estimation. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 620-635 .. code-block:: default from sklearn.linear_model import LassoCV alphas = np.logspace(-10, 10, 21) # alpha values to be chosen from by cross-validation model = make_pipeline( preprocessor, TransformedTargetRegressor( regressor=LassoCV(alphas=alphas, max_iter=100_000), func=np.log10, inverse_func=sp.special.exp10, ), ) _ = model.fit(X_train, y_train) .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 636-637 First we verify which value of :math:`\alpha` has been selected. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 637-640 .. code-block:: default model[-1].regressor_.alpha_ .. rst-class:: sphx-glr-script-out .. code-block:: none 0.001 .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 641-642 Then we check the quality of the predictions. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 642-650 .. code-block:: default y_pred = model.predict(X_train) mae = median_absolute_error(y_train, y_pred) string_score = f"MAE on training set: {mae:.2f} $/hour" y_pred = model.predict(X_test) mae = median_absolute_error(y_test, y_pred) string_score += f"\nMAE on testing set: {mae:.2f} $/hour" .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 651-663 .. code-block:: default fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(6, 6)) plt.scatter(y_test, y_pred) ax.plot([0, 1], [0, 1], transform=ax.transAxes, ls="--", c="red") plt.text(3, 20, string_score) plt.title("Lasso model, regularization, normalized variables") plt.ylabel("Model predictions") plt.xlabel("Truths") plt.xlim([0, 27]) _ = plt.ylim([0, 27]) .. image-sg:: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_015.png :alt: Lasso model, regularization, normalized variables :srcset: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_015.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 664-665 For our dataset, again the model is not very predictive. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 665-676 .. code-block:: default coefs = pd.DataFrame( model[-1].regressor_.coef_, columns=["Coefficients importance"], index=feature_names, ) coefs.plot(kind="barh", figsize=(9, 7)) plt.title("Lasso model, optimum regularization, normalized variables") plt.axvline(x=0, color=".5") plt.subplots_adjust(left=0.3) .. image-sg:: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_016.png :alt: Lasso model, optimum regularization, normalized variables :srcset: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_016.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 677-688 A Lasso model identifies the correlation between AGE and EXPERIENCE and suppresses one of them for the sake of the prediction. It is important to keep in mind that the coefficients that have been dropped may still be related to the outcome by themselves: the model chose to suppress them because they bring little or no additional information on top of the other features. Additionally, this selection is unstable for correlated features, and should be interpreted with caution. Indeed, we can check the variability of the coefficients across folds. .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 688-700 .. code-block:: default cv_model = cross_validate( model, X, y, cv=cv, return_estimator=True, n_jobs=2, ) coefs = pd.DataFrame( [est[-1].regressor_.coef_ for est in cv_model["estimator"]], columns=feature_names ) .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 701-708 .. code-block:: default plt.figure(figsize=(9, 7)) sns.stripplot(data=coefs, orient="h", color="k", alpha=0.5) sns.boxplot(data=coefs, orient="h", color="cyan", saturation=0.5, whis=100) plt.axvline(x=0, color=".5") plt.title("Coefficient variability") plt.subplots_adjust(left=0.3) .. image-sg:: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_017.png :alt: Coefficient variability :srcset: /auto_examples/inspection/images/sphx_glr_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation_017.png :class: sphx-glr-single-img .. GENERATED FROM PYTHON SOURCE LINES 709-727 We observe that the AGE and EXPERIENCE coefficients are varying a lot depending of the fold. Lessons learned --------------- * Coefficients must be scaled to the same unit of measure to retrieve feature importance. Scaling them with the standard-deviation of the feature is a useful proxy. * Coefficients in multivariate linear models represent the dependency between a given feature and the target, **conditional** on the other features. * Correlated features induce instabilities in the coefficients of linear models and their effects cannot be well teased apart. * Different linear models respond differently to feature correlation and coefficients could significantly vary from one another. * Inspecting coefficients across the folds of a cross-validation loop gives an idea of their stability. .. rst-class:: sphx-glr-timing **Total running time of the script:** ( 0 minutes 16.491 seconds) .. _sphx_glr_download_auto_examples_inspection_plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation.py: .. only:: html .. container:: sphx-glr-footer sphx-glr-footer-example .. container:: binder-badge .. image:: images/binder_badge_logo.svg :target: https://mybinder.org/v2/gh/scikit-learn/scikit-learn/1.1.X?urlpath=lab/tree/notebooks/auto_examples/inspection/plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation.ipynb :alt: Launch binder :width: 150 px .. container:: sphx-glr-download sphx-glr-download-python :download:`Download Python source code: plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation.py ` .. container:: sphx-glr-download sphx-glr-download-jupyter :download:`Download Jupyter notebook: plot_linear_model_coefficient_interpretation.ipynb ` .. only:: html .. rst-class:: sphx-glr-signature `Gallery generated by Sphinx-Gallery `_