tsMIST: Model Sensitivity Analysis with Time Series Morphing
摘要
Ensuring robustness in time series classification remains a critical challenge for safety-sensitive domains like clinical decision systems. While current evaluation practices focus on accuracy measures, they fail to address model stability under semantically meaningful input deformations. We propose tsMIST (Time Series Model Sensitivity Test), a novel morphing-based framework that systematically evaluates classifier resilience through controlled interpolation between adversarial class prototypes. By calculating the switchThreshold – defined as the minimal morphing distance required to flip predictions – our method reveals critical stability patterns across synthetic benchmarks with tunable class separation and 17 medical time series datasets. Key findings show convolutional architectures (ROCKET) maintain optimal thresholds near 50% morphing ( \(48.2 \pm 3.1\%\) ), while feature-based models (Catch22) exhibit premature decision flips at 22.7% deformation (±15.4%). In clinical scenarios, tsMIST detected critical ECG misclassifications triggered by \(\le \) 12% signal variation – vulnerabilities undetected by accuracy measures. Our results establish that robustness measures must complement accuracy for responsible AI in high-stakes applications. This work advances ML evaluation practices by enabling systematic sensitivity analysis, with implications for model auditing and deployment in safety-critical domains.