A Locally Adaptive Shrinkage Approach to False Selection Rate Control in High-Dimensional Classification

Abstract

The uncertainty quantification and error control of classifiers are crucial in many high-consequence decision-making scenarios. We propose a selective classification framework that provides an indecision option for any observations that cannot be classified with confidence. The false selection rate (FSR), defined as the expected fraction of erroneous classifications among all definitive classifications, provides a useful error rate notion that trades off a fraction of indecisions for fewer classification errors. We develop a new class of locally adaptive shrinkage and selection (LASS) rules for FSR control in the context of high-dimensional linear discriminant analysis (LDA). LASS is easy-to-analyze and has robust performance across sparse and dense regimes. Theoretical guarantees on FSR control are established without strong assumptions on sparsity as required by existing theories in high-dimensional LDA. The empirical performances of LASS are investigated using both simulated and real data.