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how to interpret confusion matrix in classification problems - manjunath - 12-23-2022

A confusion matrix is a table that is used to evaluate the performance of a classification model. It is often used to visualize the results of a classification model and to understand how well the model is performing.
 
To interpret a confusion matrix in a classification problem, you should consider the following:
 
  • True positives (TP): These are the cases where the model correctly predicted the positive class. For example, in a binary classification problem where the positive class is "disease," the true positives would be the cases where the model correctly predicted "disease."
  • True negatives (TN): These are the cases where the model correctly predicted the negative class. For example, in a binary classification problem where the negative class is "no disease," the true negatives would be the cases where the model correctly predicted "no disease."
     
  • False positives (FP): These are the cases where the model incorrectly predicted the positive class. For example, in a binary classification problem where the positive class is "disease," the false positives would be the cases where the model incorrectly predicted "disease."
  • False negatives (FN): These are the cases where the model incorrectly predicted the negative class. For example, in a binary classification problem where the negative class is "no disease," the false negatives would be the cases where the model incorrectly predicted "no disease."
To interpret the confusion matrix, you can use the values in the matrix to calculate various performance metrics, such as precision, recall, and accuracy. You can also compare the values in the matrix to understand the trade-offs between different types of errors, and to identify areas where the model may be performing poorly.
 
Overall, to interpret a confusion matrix in a classification problem, you should consider the true positives, true negatives, false positives, and false negatives, and use these values to evaluate the performance of the model and to identify areas for improvement.