Document Type
Article
Source of Publication
Annals of Mathematics and Computer Science
Publication Date
6-3-2025
Abstract
The feature attribution methods have become central to explainable artificial intelligence (XAI), providing critical insights into how machine learning (ML) models make individual and aggregate decisions. This survey presents a complete taxonomy of feature attribution techniques, organizing them into model-agnostic and model-specific categories while highlighting extensions such as rule-based and attention-based explanations. We analyze formal definitions of each method, mathematical formulations, application contexts, strengths, and limitations. A comparative analysis highlights key trade-offs among model flexibility, computational cost, explanation fidelity, and interpretability. In addition to theoretical perspectives, we provide practical comparisons of selected methods on benchmark tasks to guide real-world applicability. The emerging trends toward global interpretability, hybrid attribution approaches, and human-centered evaluation frameworks are discussed. This survey synthesizes current advancements and presents future directions for developing scalable, robust, and user-aligned feature attribution methods to advance responsible and transparent AI.
DOI Link
ISSN
Publisher
Vertex Academic Press
Volume
28
First Page
115
Last Page
126
Disciplines
Computer Sciences
Keywords
Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI), Software Testing and Debugging Techniques, Adversarial Robustness in Machine Learning
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Amril Nazir, Mohd; Evangelista, Edmund; Muhammad Salman Bukhari, Syed; and Sharma, Ravishankar, "A survey of feature attribution techniques in explainable AI: taxonomy, analysis and comparison" (2025). All Works. 8394.
https://zuscholars.zu.ac.ae/works/8394
Indexed in Scopus
no
Open Access
yes
Open Access Type
Gold: This publication is openly available in an open access journal/series