DETERMINATION OF THE DECISION-RELEVANT IMAGE COMPONENTS FOR AN IMAGE CLASSIFIER USING BINARY MASKS

A method for measuring the components of an input image on which an image classifier bases its decision regarding the assignment of this input image to one or multiple class(es) of a predefined classification. The method includes: providing binary masks, which indicate which pixels of the input image and/or of an intermediate product formed in the image classifier are considered relevant; assessing the binary masks using a quality function, which is a measure of the extent to which at least one classification score, supplied by the image classifier, with respect to at least one target class changes when the pixels of the input image or of the intermediate product which are relevant according to the binary mask are changed; and ascertaining the sought-after components of the input image relevant for the decision of the image classifier from the combination of the binary masks with respective assessments by the quality function.