LandscapeSHAP: Which Persistent Homology Class Gets the Credit?
Abstract
Shapley values, a solution concept from cooperative game theory, have recently become a standard tool for feature credit allocation in machine learning. They provide an axiomatically justified method to fairly distribute a model's prediction among the data features. Shapley values have not yet been applied to explain machine learning models trained on features from topological data analysis. We develop what we believe is the first such approach, focusing on the persistence landscape featurization of persistence diagrams. Because each landscape coordinate is a rank statistic, crediting a model's prediction back to individual persistent homology classes (persistence diagram points) is nontrivial. We introduce LandscapeSHAP, a method for fair credit allocation to persistence diagram points based on a model's prediction. For linear models on persistence landscapes, LandscapeSHAP has a closed form expression that gives the exact Shapley value of every persistence diagram point. In particular, there is no coalition sampling required. We further prove that the four Shapley "fairness" axioms uniquely characterize this credit allocation for any model, not only linear ones. For a general nonlinear model, this unique value can only be calculated exactly from its defining coalition averaging formula, which requires considering all 2N many coalitions, where N is the number of points in the persistence diagram. This is computationally intractable for persistence diagrams of realistic size. We complement the exact linear model result with an efficient Monte Carlo sampling of persistence diagram coalitions. We give convergence rates in terms of number of samples needed to approximate to a desired degree of accuracy. We also prove stability results for the LandscapeSHAP credit allocation, for any model.
Related
- RedZeD: Computing persistent homology by Reduction to Zero Differentials
- Persistent Homology of Biquandle Coloring Quivers
- The sublevel Flood bifiltration: towards scalable 2-parameter persistent homology
- Geometric Realizations of Capability Spaces of Large Models and Zigzag Persistent Homology
- Limit Theorems for Persistent Homology of Multiparameter Complex Processes
BibTeX
@misc{milicevic2026landscapeshap,
title = {{LandscapeSHAP: Which Persistent Homology Class Gets the Credit?}},
author = {Nikola Milićević},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.31469},
eprint = {2609.31469},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.31469},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - LandscapeSHAP: Which Persistent Homology Class Gets the Credit?
AU - Nikola Milićević
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/18
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.31469
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.31469
AB - Shapley values, a solution concept from cooperative game theory, have recently become a standard tool for feature credit allocation in machine learning. They provide an axiomatically justified method to fairly distribute a model's prediction among the data features. Shapley values have not yet been applied to explain machine learning models trained on features from topological data analysis. We develop what we believe is the first such approach, focusing on the persistence landscape featurization of persistence diagrams. Because each landscape coordinate is a rank statistic, crediting a model's prediction back to individual persistent homology classes (persistence diagram points) is nontrivial. We introduce LandscapeSHAP, a method for fair credit allocation to persistence diagram points based on a model's prediction. For linear models on persistence landscapes, LandscapeSHAP has a closed form expression that gives the exact Shapley value of every persistence diagram point. In particular, there is no coalition sampling required. We further prove that the four Shapley "fairness" axioms uniquely characterize this credit allocation for any model, not only linear ones. For a general nonlinear model, this unique value can only be calculated exactly from its defining coalition averaging formula, which requires considering all 2^N many coalitions, where N is the number of points in the persistence diagram. This is computationally intractable for persistence diagrams of realistic size. We complement the exact linear model result with an efficient Monte Carlo sampling of persistence diagram coalitions. We give convergence rates in terms of number of samples needed to approximate to a desired degree of accuracy. We also prove stability results for the LandscapeSHAP credit allocation, for any model.
ER -