# ProtoTEx: Explaining Model Decisions with Prototype Tensors

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.05426 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.05426/

## Key facts

- Cited by 21 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 37 of its 55 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Apr 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 37)

- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [BART: Denoising Sequence-to-Sequence Pre-training for Natural Language Generation, Translation, and Comprehension](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.13461/) (2019)
- ["Why Should I Trust You?": Explaining the Predictions of Any Classifier](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.04938/) (2016)
- [Axiomatic Attribution for Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.01365/) (2017)
- [Show, Attend and Tell: Neural Image Caption Generation with Visual Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1502.03044/) (2015)
- [Towards A Rigorous Science of Interpretable Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.08608/) (2017)
- [Instance Normalization: The Missing Ingredient for Fast Stylization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.08022/) (2016)
- [Beyond Accuracy: Behavioral Testing of NLP models with CheckList](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.04118/) (2020)
- [Attention is not Explanation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.10186/) (2019)
- [This Looks Like That: Deep Learning for Interpretable Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.10574/) (2018)
- [Attention is not not Explanation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.04626/) (2019)
- [Towards Faithfully Interpretable NLP Systems: How should we define and evaluate faithfulness?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.03685/) (2020)
- [Does the Whole Exceed its Parts? The Effect of AI Explanations on Complementary Team Performance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.14779/) (2020)
- [Is Attention Interpretable?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.03731/) (2019)
- [Rationalizing Neural Predictions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04155/) (2016)
- [Questioning the AI: Informing Design Practices for Explainable AI User Experiences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.02478/) (2020)
- [Deep Learning for Case-Based Reasoning through Prototypes: A Neural Network that Explains Its Predictions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.04806/) (2017)
- [Explainable Automated Fact-Checking for Public Health Claims](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.09926/) (2020)
- [A Survey of the State of Explainable AI for Natural Language Processing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.00711/) (2020)
- [Evaluating Explainable AI: Which Algorithmic Explanations Help Users Predict Model Behavior?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.01831/) (2020)
- [Automated Fact-Checking for Assisting Human Fact-Checkers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.07769/) (2021)
- [Fine-Grained Analysis of Propaganda in News Articles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.02517/) (2019)
- [Generating Fact Checking Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.05773/) (2020)
- [Interpretable Neural Predictions with Differentiable Binary Variables](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.08160/) (2019)
- [Learning to Faithfully Rationalize by Construction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.00115/) (2020)
- [Learning to Deceive with Attention-Based Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1909.07913/) (2019)
- [DeClarE: Debunking Fake News and False Claims using Evidence-Aware Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.06416/) (2018)
- [Generating Sentences by Editing Prototypes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1709.08878/) (2017)
- [Explainable Automated Fact-Checking: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.03870/) (2020)
- [The Bayesian Case Model: A Generative Approach for Case-Based Reasoning and Prototype Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.01161/) (2015)

## Built on by (most cited first, 21 of 21)

- [Large Language Models Help Humans Verify Truthfulness -- Except When They Are Convincingly Wrong](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.12558/) (2023)
- [Show Me the Work: Fact-Checkers' Requirements for Explainable Automated Fact-Checking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.09083/) (2025)
- [On Behalf of the Stakeholders: Trends in NLP Model Interpretability in the Era of LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.19200/) (2024)
- [Interpretable-by-Design Text Understanding with Iteratively Generated Concept Bottleneck](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.19660/) (2023)
- [Robust and Explainable Identification of Logical Fallacies in Natural Language Arguments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.07425/) (2022)
- [InterroLang: Exploring NLP Models and Datasets through Dialogue-based Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.05592/) (2023)
- [Proto-lm: A Prototypical Network-Based Framework for Built-in Interpretability in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.01732/) (2023)
- [This Patient Looks Like That Patient: Prototypical Networks for Interpretable Diagnosis Prediction from Clinical Text](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.08500/) (2022)
- [Distilling Knowledge from Large Language Models: A Concept Bottleneck Model for Hate and Counter Speech Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.08274/) (2025)
- [GAProtoNet: A Multi-head Graph Attention-based Prototypical Network for Interpretable Text Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.13312/) (2024)
- [Robust Text Classification: Analyzing Prototype-Based Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.06647/) (2023)
- [GraPPI: A Retrieve-Divide-Solve GraphRAG Framework for Large-scale Protein-protein Interaction Exploration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.16382/) (2025)
- [Regulation of Language Models With Interpretability Will Likely Result In A Performance Trade-Off](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.12169/) (2024)
- [Intermediate Entity-based Sparse Interpretable Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.01641/) (2022)
- [Wrapper Boxes: Faithful Attribution of Model Predictions to Training Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.08644/) (2023)
- [Exploring the Plausibility of Hate and Counter Speech Detectors with Explainable AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.20274/) (2024)
- [They Look Like Each Other: Case-based Reasoning for Explainable Depression Detection on Twitter using Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.21041/) (2024)
- [A Transformer and Prototype-based Interpretable Model for Contextual Sarcasm Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.11838/) (2025)
- [Enhancing the Comprehensibility of Text Explanations via Unsupervised Concept Discovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.20293/) (2025)
- [Coupling Local Context and Global Semantic Prototypes via a Hierarchical Architecture for Rhetorical Roles Labeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.03856/) (2026)
- [ProtoSiTex: Learning Semi-Interpretable Prototypes for Multi-label Text Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.12534/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present ProtoTEx, a novel white-box NLP classification architecture based on prototype networks. ProtoTEx faithfully explains model decisions based on prototype tensors that encode latent clusters of training examples. At inference time, classification decisions are based on the distances between the input text and the prototype tensors, explained via the training examples most similar to the most influential prototypes. We also describe a novel interleaved training algorithm that effectively handles classes characterized by the absence of indicative features. On a propaganda detection task, ProtoTEx accuracy matches BART-large and exceeds BERT-large with the added benefit of providing faithful explanations. A user study also shows that prototype-based explanations help non-experts to better recognize propaganda in online news.