Cited by 376Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)Software Testing and Debugging TechniquesEthics and Social Impacts of AI

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 170 of the 176 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 220 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

A Survey of Contrastive and Counterfactual Explanation Generation Methods for Explainable Artificial Intelligence

Open access
Stepin, Ilia, Alonso, Jose M., Catala, Alejandro, Pereira-Farina, Martin·2021·IEEE Access

Abstract

A number of algorithms in the field of artificial intelligence offer poorly interpretable decisions. To disclose the reasoning behind such algorithms, their output can be explained by means of so-called evidence-based (or factual) explanations. Alternatively, contrastive and counterfactual explanations justify why the output of the algorithms is not any different and how it could be changed, respectively. It is of crucial importance to bridge the gap between theoretical approaches to contrastive and counterfactual explanation and the corresponding computational frameworks. In this work we conduct a systematic literature review which provides readers with a thorough and reproducible analysis of the interdisciplinary research field under study. We first examine theoretical foundations of contrastive and counterfactual accounts of explanation. Then, we report the state-of-the-art computational frameworks for contrastive and counterfactual explanation generation. In addition, we analyze how grounded such frameworks are on the insights from the inspected theoretical approaches. As a result, we highlight a variety of properties of the approaches under study and reveal a number of shortcomings thereof. Moreover, we define a taxonomy regarding both theoretical and practical approaches to contrastive and counterfactual explanation.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

This systematic literature review maps theoretical accounts and computational frameworks for contrastive and counterfactual explanation in XAI, proposing the umbrella term “contfactual explanation.” It reports a predominantly causal theoretical literature, many task-specific generation frameworks, and a weak link between theory and implementation, with evaluation methods lacking standardization.

Key findings

  • From 113 unique primary studies, 74/113 (65.49%) addressed definitions/theoretical accounts (RQ1), 52/113 (46.02%) described generation frameworks (RQ2), and only 13/113 (11.50%) addressed both (RQ3).
  • Among theoretical accounts, 49/74 (66.22%) concerned causal explanation; the proposed taxonomy distinguishes causal, non-causal, and hybrid contfactual explanation.
  • Among 52 generation frameworks, 31 (59.62%) generated counterfactual explanations, 17 (32.69%) contrastive, and 4 (7.69%) fused both; 42/52 (80.77%) targeted classification. Most were model-agnostic counterfactual methods, and most output numerical/feature-based explanations.
  • Evaluation was non-standardized: 17/52 (32.69%) provided no evaluation details; most used objective metrics, few used hybrid automatic+human evaluation. Only 13/113 studies were theoretically grounded, and only 3/13 (23.08%) of those interpreted theory to propose their own definition.

Methods

  • Systematic literature review following Kitchenham and Charters, Kitchenham et al., and Wohlin, with planning, conducting, and reporting phases; three RQs on definitions, generation methods, and theory-practice grounding.
  • Searched Scopus and Web of Science on October 2, 2020 using six queries (q1–q6) over title, abstract, and author keywords with word stems and NEAR/3/W proximity operators; applied inclusion/exclusion criteria, duplicate removal, and snowballing.
  • From 338 candidate primary studies, 136 duplicates removed, 75 filtered as irrelevant, 33 discarded for inclusion criteria, and 19 added via bibliography inspection, yielding 113 unique primary studies; data extraction covered definitions/theories and framework problem, method, output form, and evaluation, plus bibliometric analysis with Mendeley and VOSViewer.

Limitations

  • The paper states that no uniform set of evaluation methods has been adopted, that many frameworks lack standardization, and that a gap remains between philosophical accounts and ML-related concepts, making theoretical frameworks poorly applicable to XAI.
  • The paper states that definitions are highly task- and domain-specific, that most computational frameworks are non-causal and not rooted in theoretical accounts, and that only 13/113 studies were theoretically grounded.
  • Evident from the text: the search was limited to Scopus and WoS and to a single date (October 2, 2020), so 2020 coverage is incomplete; the review also notes that many frameworks are limited to specific models, tasks, or small feature sets, and that user-centered evaluation is rare.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1109/access.2021.3051315

Cites

170 of 170 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

0 of 220 cited sources checked · 0 supported · 0 flagged

Show all 88 claims

  • Probably not a substantial claim. 205
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 23
213 of 213
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    There is a gap between theoretical approaches to contrastive and counterfactual explanation and the corresponding computational frameworks.

    “It is of crucial importance to bridge the gap between theoretical approaches to contrastive and counterfactual explanation and the corresponding computational frameworks.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Publication counts and author keyword maps are valid indicators of research attention and interdisciplinarity in the field.

    “The bibliometric analysis over the queries q 1 , q 2 , and q 3 allows us to obtain a big picture of the research area of contfactual explanation generation and spot its key characteristics.”
    “Author keyword maps allow us to present an overview of the terms most relevant to those specified in the preparatory queries (q 1 , q 2 , and q 3 ).”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Counterfactual explanation encompasses contrastive, counterfactual, and contrastive-counterfactual explanation.

    “Remind that contfactual explanation embraces contrastive, counterfactual, and contrastive-counterfactual explanation.”
3 of 3

Claims other papers make about this one

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Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

  • All frameworks are said to be evaluated, but 17 are said not to be

    Minor

    The evaluation-method section says all considered frameworks are evaluated with intrinsic metrics, then states that 17 of the 52 publications do not evaluate their frameworks by either automatic metrics or a human survey.

1 of 1

Citations

Cites

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Show all 176 references

6 of the 176 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 3

  1. lewis, 1973, Counterfactuals
  2. lewis, 1986, On the Plurality of Worlds
  3. molnar, 2019, Interpretable Machine Learning A Guide for Making Black Box Models Explainable

Cited by

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Items 201–300 of 374

Metadata

Authors
Stepin, I., Alonso, J. M., Catala, A., & Pereira-Farina, M.
Affiliations
Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (ES)
Venue
IEEE Access
Published
2021
Volume
9
Pages
11974-12001
ISSN
2169-3536 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3125997628
Cited by
376
References
176
Citations by year
2026: 47 · 2025: 80 · 2024: 75 · 2023: 79 · 2022: 55 · 2021: 39
FWCI
21.91
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • IEEE Access (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • Repositorio institucional da Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (University of Santiago de Compostela) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Hispana (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
Funders
  • Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (RTI2018-099646-B-I00, RED2018-102641-T)
  • Galician Ministry of Education, University and Professional Training (ED431F 2018/02, ED431C 2018/29, ED431G/08, ED431G2019/04)
  • European Regional Development Fund
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Software › Software Testing and Debugging Techniques
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
Keywords
contrastive explanations, counterfactual explanations, explanation generation, explainable AI, evidence-based explanations, model interpretability

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