What is a Confusion Matrix in Python (Scikit-learn Example)

The confusion matrix is often used in machine learning to compute the accuracy of a classification algorithm.

It can be used in binary classifications as well as multi-class classification problems.

Confusion Matrix

A confusion matrix is a visual representation of the performance of a machine learning model. It summarizes the predicted and actual values of a classification model to identify misclassifications. The confusion matrix helps data scientists to fine-tune their models and improve their performance.


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What the Confusion Matrix Measures?

It measures the quality of predictions from a classification model by looking at how many predictions are True and how many are False.

Specifically, it computes:

  • True positives (TP)
  • False positives (FP)
  • True negatives (TN)
  • False negatives (FN)

Understand the Confusion Matrix

Here, we will try to make sense of the true positive, true negative, false positive and false negative values mean.

True Positive

The model predicted true and it is true.

The model predicted that someone is sick and the person is sick.

True Negative

The model predicted false and it is false.

The model predicted that someone is not sick and the person is not sick.

False Positive

The model predicted True and it is false.

The model predicted that someone is sick and the person is not sick.

False Negative

The model predicted false and it is true.

The model predicted that someone is not sick and the person is sick.

How to Create a Confusion Matrix with Python in Scikit-learn?

In order to get a confusion matrix in scikit-learn:

  1. Run a classification algorithm

    classifier.fit(X_train, y_train)
    y_pred = classifier.predict(X_test)

    how to step 1

  2. Import metrics from the sklearn module

    from sklearn.metrics import confusion_matrix

    how to step 2

  3. Run the confusion matrix function on actual and predicted values

    confusion_matrix(y_test, y_pred)

    how to step 3

  4. Plot the confusion matrix

    plot_confusion_matrix(classifier, X_test, y_test, cmap=plt.cm.Blues)
    plt.show()

    how to step 4

  5. Inspect the classification report

    print(classification_report(y_test, y_pred))

    how to step 5

Run a Classification Algorithm in Python

In a previous article, we classified breast cancers using the k-nearest neighbors algorithm from scikit-learn.

I will not explain this part of the code, but you can look at the detail in the article on the k-nearest neighbors.

import pandas as pd
from sklearn.datasets import load_breast_cancer
from sklearn.neighbors import KNeighborsClassifier
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split

def to_target(x):
    """Map targets to target names"""    
    return list(dataset.target_names)[x]

# Load data
dataset = load_breast_cancer()
df = pd.DataFrame(dataset.data,columns=dataset.feature_names)
df['target'] = pd.Series(dataset.target)
df['target_names'] = df['target'].apply(to_target)


# Define predictor and predicted datasets
X = df.drop(['target','target_names'], axis=1).values
y = df['target_names'].values

# split taining and test set
X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(X, y, test_size=0.3, random_state=42, stratify=y)

# train the model
knn = KNeighborsClassifier(n_neighbors=8)
knn.fit(X_train, y_train)
y_pred = knn.predict(X_test)

# compute accuracy of the model
knn.score(X_test, y_test)

The result is an accuracy score of the model.

0.9239766081871345

Create a Confusion Matrix in Python

Use the confusion_matrix method from sklearn.metrics to compute the confusion matrix.

from sklearn.metrics import confusion_matrix

cm = confusion_matrix(y_test,y_pred)
cm

The result is an array in which positions are the same as the quadrant we saw in the past.

array([[ 57,   7],
       [  5, 102]])
  • cm[0][0] = TP
  • cm[1][1] = TN
  • cm[0][1] = FP
  • cm[1][0] = FN

Plot the Confusion Matrix in Scikit-Learn

You can use the plot_confusion_matrix method to visualize the confusion matrix.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from sklearn.metrics import plot_confusion_matrix

color = 'white'
matrix = plot_confusion_matrix(knn, X_test, y_test, cmap=plt.cm.Blues)
matrix.ax_.set_title('Confusion Matrix', color=color)
plt.xlabel('Predicted Label', color=color)
plt.ylabel('True Label', color=color)
plt.gcf().axes[0].tick_params(colors=color)
plt.gcf().axes[1].tick_params(colors=color)
plt.show()

The result is your confusion matrix plot.

  • Top left quadrant = True Positives = Number of benign labelled as benign
  • Bottom right quadrant = True Negatives = Number of malignant labelled as malignant
  • Top right quadrant = False Positives = Number of benign labelled as malignant
  • Bottom left quadrant = False Negatives = Number of malignant labelled as benign

You may run into this error:

ImportError: cannot import name 'plot_confusion_matrix' from 'sklearn.metrics'

Or the following FutureWarning:

FutureWarning: Function plot_confusion_matrix is deprecated; Function `plot_confusion_matrix` is deprecated in 1.0 and will be removed in 1.2. Use one of the class methods: ConfusionMatrixDisplay.from_predictions or ConfusionMatrixDisplay.from_estimator.
  warnings.warn(msg, category=FutureWarning)

This is because plot_confusion_matrix was deprecated in some release.

The alternative is to use ConfusionMatrixDisplay.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from sklearn.metrics import ConfusionMatrixDisplay
from sklearn.metrics import confusion_matrix

cm = confusion_matrix(y_test, y_pred, labels=knn.classes_)
color = 'white'
disp = ConfusionMatrixDisplay(confusion_matrix=cm, display_labels=knn.classes_)
disp.plot()
plt.show()

Run the Classification Report in Python

With data from the confusion matrix, you can interpret the results by looking at the classification report.

from sklearn.metrics import classification_report

print(classification_report(y_test, y_pred))

The report returns the metrics relevant to evaluating your classification model:

MetricWhat it isSklearn’s Metric Method
Accuracy(true positive + true negative) / total predictionsmetrics.precision_score(true, pred)
Precisiontrue positive / (true positive + false positive)metrics.precision_score(true, pred)
Recall (sensitivity)true positive / (true positive + false negative)metrics.recall_score(true, pred)
F1-Score2 * (precision * recall) / (precision + recall)metrics.f1_score(true, pred)
Specificitytrue negative / (true negative + false positive)metrics.recall_score(true, pred, pos_label=0)

If you don’t understand the result above, make sure that you read the article that I wrote on the classification report.

Confusion Matrix for Multi-Class Classification

#Import the necessary libraries
from sklearn.datasets import load_wine
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestClassifier
from sklearn.metrics import confusion_matrix
import seaborn as sns
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from sklearn.metrics import accuracy_score

# Load the wine dataset
X, y = load_wine(return_X_y=True)
X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(X, y,test_size=0.25)
 
# Train the model
clf = RandomForestClassifier(random_state=23)
clf.fit(X_train, y_train)
 
# Predict using the test data
y_pred = clf.predict(X_test)
 
# Compute the confusion matrix
cm = confusion_matrix(y_test,y_pred)
 
# Plot the confusion matrix.
sns.heatmap(cm,
            annot=True)
plt.ylabel('Prediction',fontsize=13)
plt.xlabel('Actual',fontsize=13)
plt.title('Confusion Matrix',fontsize=17)
plt.show()
 
# Calculate accuracy
accuracy = accuracy_score(y_test, y_pred)
print("Accuracy   :", accuracy)

Confusion Matrix Definitions

Confusion MatrixQuality measurement of predictions
Scikit-learnMachine learning package in Python
True positiveModel correctly predicts the positive class
False positiveModel incorrectly predicts the positive class
True negativeModel correctly predicts the negative class
False negativeModel incorrectly predicts the negative class

Cheatsheet

Install sklearnpip install -U scikit-learn
Python library importfrom sklearn.metrics import confusion_matrix
Plot confusion matrixsklearn metrics plot_confusion_matrix
Classification reportsklearn metrics classification_report

Confusion Matrix Parameters

Here are the parameters that can be used with the confusion_matrix() function in Scikit-learn.

confusion_matrix(y_true, y_pred, *, labels=None, sample_weight=None, normalize=None)
  • y_true: Ground truth (correct) target values. array-like of shape (n_samples,)
  • y_pred: Estimated targets as returned by a classifier. array-like of shape (n_samples,)
  • labels: List of labels to index the matrix. This may be used to reorder or select a subset of labels. If None is given, those that appear at least once in y_true or y_pred are used in sorted order. array-like of shape (n_classes), default=None
  • sample_weight: Sample weights. array-like of shape (n_samples,), default=None
  • normalize : Normalizes confusion matrix over the true (rows), predicted (columns) conditions or all the population. If None, confusion matrix will not be normalized. {'true', 'pred', 'all'}, default=None

Confusion Matrix FAQs

How do you get a confusion matrix in scikit-learn?

Run a classification algorithm, import the confusion matrix function from the sklearn.metrics module, run function on test and prediction and plot the matrix.

Why use confusion matrix?

use the confusion matrix to evaluate the performance of a machine learning classification algorithm.

Is confusion matrix better than accuracy?

The confusion matrix provides more insights into a model’s performance than classification accuracy as it shows the number of correctly and incorrectly classified instances.

Can confusion matrix be used on continuous values (e.g. linear regression)?

Confusion matrices shows the accuracy of the prediction of classes. When trying to predict a number output like in the case of the continuous output of a regression model, confusion matrix should not be used.

What is confusion matrix used for?

The confusion matrix is used to evaluate the accuracy of a machine learning model that tries to predict classes (e.g. Classification).

How do you create a confusion matrix in Python?

Use the confusion_matrix function from the sklearn.metrics module.

Is confusion matrix only for binary classification problems?

No. Confusion matrix can be used for binary classification as well as multi-class classification problems.

Conclusion

This article was quite big to grasp.

All I want you to leave with is that it is super important to look at the confusion matrix to help you fine-tune your machine learning models.

This can modify the accuracy score quite heavily in some cases.

Good work on building your first confusion matrix in Scikit-learn.

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