# On the Evaluation Consistency of Attribution-based Explanations

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.19471 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.19471/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 49 of its 59 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 28 Jul 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 49)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1556/) (2014)
- [Grad-CAM: Visual Explanations from Deep Networks via Gradient-based Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02391/) (2016)
- [Densely Connected Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.06993/) (2016)
- [A Unified Approach to Interpreting Model Predictions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.07874/) (2017)
- [EfficientNet: Rethinking Model Scaling for Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11946/) (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)
- [Deep Inside Convolutional Networks: Visualising Image Classification Models and Saliency Maps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1312.6034/) (2013)
- [Visualizing and Understanding Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1311.2901/) (2013)
- [Shortcut Learning in Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.07780/) (2020)
- [Inception-v4, Inception-ResNet and the Impact of Residual Connections on Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.07261/) (2016)
- [Learning Important Features Through Propagating Activation Differences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.02685/) (2017)
- [Striving for Simplicity: The All Convolutional Net](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6806/) (2014)
- [Grad-CAM++: Improved Visual Explanations for Deep Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.11063/) (2017)
- [RISE: Randomized Input Sampling for Explanation of Black-box Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.07421/) (2018)
- [Remote Sensing Image Scene Classification: Benchmark and State of the Art](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.00121/) (2017)
- [Transformer Interpretability Beyond Attention Visualization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.09838/) (2020)
- [Interpretable Explanations of Black Boxes by Meaningful Perturbation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.03296/) (2017)
- [A Benchmark for Interpretability Methods in Deep Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.10758/) (2018)
- [Evaluating the visualization of what a Deep Neural Network has learned](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1509.06321/) (2015)
- [Top-down Neural Attention by Excitation Backprop](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.00507/) (2016)
- [Counterfactual Visual Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.07451/) (2019)
- [Not Just a Black Box: Learning Important Features Through Propagating Activation Differences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1605.01713/) (2016)
- [Evaluating and Aggregating Feature-based Model Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.00631/) (2020)
- [Quantus: An Explainable AI Toolkit for Responsible Evaluation of Neural Network Explanations and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.06861/) (2022)
- [Visualizing Deep Neural Network Decisions: Prediction Difference Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1702.04595/) (2017)
- [A Diagnostic Study of Explainability Techniques for Text Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.13295/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Probabilistic Stability Guarantees for Feature Attributions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.13787/) (2025)
- [Attribution Explanations for Deep Neural Networks: A Theoretical Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.07636/) (2025)
- [CID: Measuring Feature Importance Through Counterfactual Distributions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.15371/) (2025)
- [Missingness Bias Calibration in Feature Attribution Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.04831/) (2026)
- [Position: Explanation Stability Is a Property of the Model Method Pair, Not the Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.16652/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Attribution-based explanations are garnering increasing attention recently and have emerged as the predominant approach towards textiteXplanable Artificial Intelligence~(XAI). However, the absence of consistent configurations and systematic investigations in prior literature impedes comprehensive evaluations of existing methodologies. In this work, we introduce Meta-Rank, an open platform for benchmarking attribution methods in the image domain. Presently, Meta-Rank assesses eight exemplary attribution methods using six renowned model architectures on four diverse datasets, employing both the textitMost Relevant First (MoRF) and textitLeast Relevant First (LeRF) evaluation protocols. Through extensive experimentation, our benchmark reveals three insights in attribution evaluation endeavors: 1) evaluating attribution methods under disparate settings can yield divergent performance rankings; 2) although inconsistent across numerous cases, the performance rankings exhibit remarkable consistency across distinct checkpoints along the same training trajectory; 3) prior attempts at consistent evaluation fare no better than baselines when extended to more heterogeneous models and datasets. Our findings underscore the necessity for future research in this domain to conduct rigorous evaluations encompassing a broader range of models and datasets, and to reassess the assumptions underlying the empirical success of different attribution methods. Our code is publicly available at urlhttps://github.com/TreeThree-R/Meta-Rank.