NeuralSens: Sensitivity Analysis of Neural Networks

Neural networks are important tools for data-intensive analysis and are commonly applied to model non-linear relationships between dependent and independent variables. However, neural networks are usually seen as "black boxes" that offer minimal information about how the input variables are used to predict the response in a fitted model. This article describes the pkgNeuralSens package that can be used to perform sensitivity analysis of neural networks using the partial derivatives method. Functions in the package can be used to obtain the sensitivities of the output with respect to the input variables, evaluate variable importance based on sensitivity measures and characterize relationships between input and output variables. Methods to calculate sensitivities are provided for objects from common neural network packages in proglangR, including pkgneuralnet, pkgnnet, pkgRSNNS, pkgh2o, pkgneural, pkgforecast and pkgcaret. The article presents an overview of the techniques for obtaining information from neural network models, a theoretical foundation of how are calculated the partial derivatives of the output with respect to the inputs of a multi-layer perceptron model, a description of the package structure and functions, and applied examples to compare pkgNeuralSens functions with analogous functions from other available proglangR packages.