get.ALE: get method for ALE objects

In ale: Interpretable Machine Learning and Statistical Inference with Accumulated Local Effects (ALE)

get method for ALE objects

Description

Retrieve specific elements from an ALE object.

Arguments

obj	ALE object from which to retrieve elements.
x_cols, exclude_cols	character, list, or formula. Columns names and interaction terms from obj requested in one of the special x_cols formats. The default value of NULL for x_cols retrieves all available data of the output requested in what. See details in the documentation for resolve_x_cols().
what	character(1). What kind of output is requested. Must be either "ale" (default) or "boot_data". To retrieve ALE statistics, see the stats argument.
...	not used. Inserted to require explicit naming of subsequent arguments.
stats	character(1). Retrieve ALE statistics. If stats is specified, then what must be left at the default ("ale"). Otherwise, get() errors if stats is specified and what has some other value. See the return value details below for valid values for stats.
cats	character. Optional category names to retrieve if the ALE is for a categorical y outcome model.
ale_centre	Same as in documentation for ALEPlots()
simplify	logical(1). If TRUE (default), the results will be simplified to the simplest list structure possible to give the requested results. If FALSE, a complex but consistent list structure will be returned; this might be preferred for programmatic and non-interactive use.
silent	See documentation for resolve_x_cols()

Value

Regardless of the requested data, all get.ALE() have a common structure:

• If more than one category of the y outcome is returned, then the top level is a list named by each category. If, however, the y outcome is not categorical or only one category of multiple possibilities is specified using the cats argument, then the top level never has categories, regardless of the value of simplify.

• The next level (or top level if there are zero or one category) is a list with one or two levels:

  • d1: 1D ALE elements.

  • d2: 2D ALE elements. However, if elements of only one dimension (either 1D or 2D) are requested and simplify = TRUE (default), the empty list is eliminated and the level is skipped to provide only the elements present. For example, if only 1D ALE data is requested, then there will be no d1 sublist but only a list of the ALE data as described for the next level. If simplify = FALSE, both d1 and d2 sublists will always be returned; the empty sublist will be NULL.

While all results follow the general structure just described, the specific type of data returned depends on the values of the what and stats arguments:

what = 'ale' (default) and stats = NULL (default)

A list whose elements, named by each requested x variable, are each a tibble. The rows each represent one ALE bin. The tibble has the following columns: * var.bin or var.ceil where var is the name of a variable (column): For non-numeric x, var.bin is the value of each of the ALE categories. For numeric x, var.ceil is the value of the upper bound (ceiling) of each ALE bin. The first "bin" of numeric variables represents the minimum value. For 2D ALE with an var1 by var2 interaction, both var1.bin and var2.bin columns are returned (or var1.ceil or var2.ceilfor numeric var1 or var2). * .n: the number of rows of data in each bin represented by var.bin or var.ceil. For numeric x, the first bin contains all data elements that have exactly the minimum value of x. This is often 1, but might be more than 1 if more than one data element has exactly the minimum value. * .y: the ALE function value calculated for that bin. For bootstrapped ALE, this is the same as .y_mean by default or .y_median if boot_centre = 'median'. Regardless, both .y_mean and .y_median are returned as columns here. * .y_lo, .y_hi: the lower and upper confidence intervals, respectively, for the bootstrapped .y value based on the boot_alpha argument in the ALE() constructor.

what = 'boot_data' and stats = NULL (default)

A list whose elements, named by each requested x variable, are each a tibble. These are the data from which .y_mean, .y_median, .y_lo, and .y_hi are summarized when what = 'ale'. The rows each represent one ALE bin for a specified bootstrap iteration. The tibble has the following columns: * .it: The bootstrap iteration. Iteration 0 represents the ALE calculations on the full dataset; the remaining values of .it are from 1 to boot_it (number of bootstrap iterations specified in the ALE() constructor. * var where var is the name of a variable (column): For non-numeric x, var is the value of each of the ALE categories. For numeric x, var is the value of the upper bound (ceiling) of each ALE bin. They are otherwise similar to their meanings described for what = 'ale' above. * .n and .y: Same as for what = 'ale'.

what = 'ale' (default) and stats = 'estimate'

A list with elements d1 and d2 with the value of each ALE statistic. Each row represents one variable or interaction. The tibble has the following columns: * term: The variables or columns for the 1D or 2D ALE statistic. * aled, aler_min, aler_max, naled, naler_min, naler_max: the respective ALE statistic for the variable or interaction.

what = 'ale' (default) and stats is one or more values in c('aled', 'aler_min', 'aler_max', 'naled', 'naler_min', 'naler_max')

A list with elements d1 and d2 with the distribution value of the single requested ALE statistic. Each element d1 and d2 is a tibble. Each row represents one statistic for one variable or interaction. The tibble has the following columns: * term: Same as for stats = 'estimate'. * statistic: The requested ALE statistic(s). * estimate, mean, median: The average of the bootstrapped value of the requested statistic. estimate is equal to either mean or median depending on the boot_centre argument in the ALE() constructor. If ALE is not bootstrapped, then estimate, mean, and median are equal. * conf.low, conf.high: the lower and upper confidence intervals, respectively, for the bootstrapped statistic based on the boot_alpha argument in the ALE() constructor. If ALE is not bootstrapped, then estimate, conf.low, and conf.high are equal.

what = 'ale' (default) and stats = 'all'

A list with elements d1 and d2 with the distribution values of all available ALE statistics for the requested variables and interactions. Whereas the stats = 'aled' (for example) format returns data for a single statistic, stats = 'all' returns all statistics for the requested variables. Thus, the data structure and columns are identical as for single statistics above, except that all available ALE statistics are returned.

what = 'ale' (default) and stats = 'conf_regions'

A list with elements d1 and d2 with the confidence regions for the requested variables and interactions. Each element is a list with the requested d1 and d2 sub-elements as described in the general structure above. Each data element is a tibble with confidence regions for a single variable or interaction. For an explanation of the columns, see vignette('ale-statistics').

what = 'ale' (default) and stats = 'conf_sig'

Identical structure as stats = 'conf_regions' except that the elements are filtered for the terms (variables or interactions) that have statistically significant confidence regions exceeding the threshold of the inner ALER band, specifically, at least obj@params$aler_alpha[2] of the rows of data. See vignette("ale-statistics") for details.

Examples

# See examples at ALE() for a demonstration of how to use the get() method.

ale documentation built on April 11, 2025, 6:09 p.m.