Cited by 67Anomaly Detection Techniques and ApplicationsExplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)Data Management and Algorithms

A survey on outlier explanations

Open access
Panjei, Egawati, Gruenwald, Le, Leal, Eleazar, Nguyen, Christopher, Silvia, Shejuti·2022·The VLDB Journal

Abstract

While many techniques for outlier detection have been proposed in the literature, the interpretation of detected outliers is often left to users. As a result, it is difficult for users to promptly take appropriate actions concerning the detected outliers. To lessen this difficulty, when outliers are identified, they should be presented together with their explanations. There are survey papers on outlier detection, but none exists for outlier explanations. To fill this gap, in this paper, we present a survey on outlier explanations in which meaningful knowledge is mined from anomalous data to explain them. We define different types of outlier explanations and discuss the challenges in generating each type. We review the existing outlier explanation techniques and discuss how they address the challenges. We also discuss the applications of outlier explanations and review the existing methods used to evaluate outlier explanations. Furthermore, we discuss possible future research directions.

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Authors
Panjei, E., Gruenwald, L., Leal, E., Nguyen, C., & Silvia, S.
Affiliations
  • University of Oklahoma (US)
  • University of Minnesota, Duluth (US)
Corresponding author
Panjei, Egawati
Venue
The VLDB Journal
Published
2022-01-26
Volume
31
Issue
5
Pages
977-1008
ISSN
  • 0949-877X (ISSN-L)
  • 1066-8888
OpenAlex
W4210457304
Cited by
67
References
88
Citations by year
2026: 11 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 25 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 2
FWCI
4.61
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • The VLDB Journal (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Anomaly Detection Techniques and Applications
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Signal Processing › Data Management and Algorithms
Keywords
outlier detection, explanation generation, explanation evaluation

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