# Explaining automated gender classification of human gait

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.17015 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.17015/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 0 of its 9 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Oct 2022.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Machine Learning in Biomechanics: Key Applications and Limitations in Walking, Running, and Sports Movements](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.03717/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

State-of-the-art machine learning (ML) models are highly effective in classifying gait analysis data, however, they lack in providing explanations for their predictions. This "black-box" characteristic makes it impossible to understand on which input patterns, ML models base their predictions. The present study investigates whether Explainable Artificial Intelligence methods, i.e., Layer-wise Relevance Propagation (LRP), can be useful to enhance the explainability of ML predictions in gait classification. The research question was: Which input patterns are most relevant for an automated gender classification model and do they correspond to characteristics identified in the literature? We utilized a subset of the GAITREC dataset containing five bilateral ground reaction force (GRF) recordings per person during barefoot walking of 62 healthy participants: 34 females and 28 males. Each input signal (right and left side) was min-max normalized before concatenation and fed into a multi-layer Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). The classification accuracy was obtained over a stratified ten-fold cross-validation. To identify gender-specific patterns, the input relevance scores were derived using LRP. The mean classification accuracy of the CNN with 83.3% showed a clear superiority over the zero-rule baseline of 54.8%.