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However, these approaches leave a substantive explanatory burden with human users, insofar as the latter are required to map low-level properties into more salient and readily understandable parts of the input. To alleviate this cognitive burden, an alternative model-agnostic framework is proposed here. This framework is instantiated to address explanation problems in the context of ML image classification systems, without relying on pixel relevance maps and other low-level features of the input. More specifically, one obtains sets of middle-level properties of classification inputs that are perceptually salient by applying sparse dictionary learning techniques. These middle-level properties are used as building blocks for explanations of image classifications. The achieved explanations are parsimonious, for their reliance on a limited set of middle-level image properties. And they can be contrastive, because the set of middle-level image properties can be used to explain why the system advanced the proposed classification over other antagonist classifications. In view of its model-agnostic character, the proposed framework is adaptable to a variety of other ML systems and explanation problems.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1142\/s0129065720500409","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,7,30]],"date-time":"2020-07-30T06:11:42Z","timestamp":1596089502000},"page":"2050040","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":16,"title":["Middle-Level Features for the Explanation of Classification Systems by Sparse Dictionary Methods"],"prefix":"10.1142","volume":"30","author":[{"given":"A.","family":"Apicella","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e delle Tecnologie dell\u2019Informazione, Universit\u00e0 degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 80125 Napoli, Italy"}]},{"given":"F.","family":"Isgr\u00f2","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e delle Tecnologie dell\u2019Informazione, Universit\u00e0 degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 80125 Napoli, Italy"}]},{"given":"R.","family":"Prevete","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e delle Tecnologie dell\u2019Informazione, Universit\u00e0 degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 80125 Napoli, Italy"}]},{"given":"G.","family":"Tamburrini","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e delle Tecnologie dell\u2019Informazione, Universit\u00e0 degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 80125 Napoli, Italy"}]}],"member":"219","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,7,14]]},"reference":[{"key":"S0129065720500409BIB001","volume-title":"Proc. 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