mlr_measures_classif.auc: Area Under the ROC Curve

In mlr3: Machine Learning in R - Next Generation

Area Under the ROC Curve

Description

Measure to compare true observed labels with predicted probabilities in binary classification tasks.

Details

Computes the area under the Receiver Operator Characteristic (ROC) curve. The AUC can be interpreted as the probability that a randomly chosen positive observation has a higher predicted probability than a randomly chosen negative observation.

For n^+ positive and n^- negative observations with R_i^+ the rank of the i-th positive observation's predicted probability (average ranks for ties), the AUC is estimated as

\widehat{\operatorname{AUC}} = \frac{1}{n^+ n^-} \left( \sum_{i=1}^{n^+} R_i^+ \; - \; \frac{n^+(n^+ + 1)}{2} \right).

If sample_weights are provided, let w_i^+ be the weight of the i-th positive observation with predicted probability p_i^+, W^+ = \sum_i w_i^+, and W^- the total weight of the negative observations. Define the weighted Mann-Whitney contribution of positive observation i as U_i^w = W_{< p_i^+}^- + \tfrac{1}{2} W_{= p_i^+}^-, i.e. the total weight of negative observations with a smaller predicted probability plus half the weight of negatives tied with p_i^+. The weighted AUC is then

\widehat{\operatorname{AUC}}_w = \frac{1}{W^+ W^-} \sum_{i=1}^{n^+} w_i^+ U_i^w.

This measure is undefined if the true values are either all positive or all negative.

Dictionary

This Measure can be instantiated via the dictionary mlr_measures or with the associated sugar function msr():

mlr_measures$get("classif.auc")
msr("classif.auc")

Parameters

Empty ParamSet

Meta Information

• Type: "binary"

• Range: [0, 1]

• Minimize: FALSE

• Required prediction: prob

Note

The score function calls mlr3measures::auc() from package mlr3measures.

If the measure is undefined for the input, NaN is returned. This can be customized by setting the field na_value.

See Also

Dictionary of Measures: mlr_measures

as.data.table(mlr_measures) for a complete table of all (also dynamically created) Measure implementations.

Other classification measures: mlr_measures_classif.acc, mlr_measures_classif.bacc, mlr_measures_classif.bbrier, mlr_measures_classif.ce, mlr_measures_classif.costs, mlr_measures_classif.dor, mlr_measures_classif.fbeta, mlr_measures_classif.fdr, mlr_measures_classif.fn, mlr_measures_classif.fnr, mlr_measures_classif.fomr, mlr_measures_classif.fp, mlr_measures_classif.fpr, mlr_measures_classif.logloss, mlr_measures_classif.mauc_au1p, mlr_measures_classif.mauc_au1u, mlr_measures_classif.mauc_aunp, mlr_measures_classif.mauc_aunu, mlr_measures_classif.mauc_mu, mlr_measures_classif.mbrier, mlr_measures_classif.mcc, mlr_measures_classif.npv, mlr_measures_classif.ppv, mlr_measures_classif.prauc, mlr_measures_classif.precision, mlr_measures_classif.recall, mlr_measures_classif.sensitivity, mlr_measures_classif.specificity, mlr_measures_classif.tn, mlr_measures_classif.tnr, mlr_measures_classif.tp, mlr_measures_classif.tpr

Other binary classification measures: mlr_measures_classif.bbrier, mlr_measures_classif.dor, mlr_measures_classif.fbeta, mlr_measures_classif.fdr, mlr_measures_classif.fn, mlr_measures_classif.fnr, mlr_measures_classif.fomr, mlr_measures_classif.fp, mlr_measures_classif.fpr, mlr_measures_classif.npv, mlr_measures_classif.ppv, mlr_measures_classif.prauc, mlr_measures_classif.precision, mlr_measures_classif.recall, mlr_measures_classif.sensitivity, mlr_measures_classif.specificity, mlr_measures_classif.tn, mlr_measures_classif.tnr, mlr_measures_classif.tp, mlr_measures_classif.tpr

mlr3 documentation built on June 11, 2026, 5:08 p.m.