| # Confidence Thresholds |
|
|
| Per-class confidence guidance for interpreting InsectNet predictions. |
| **Thresholds are class-specific** — a universal cutoff produces both |
| false positives and false negatives. |
|
|
| ## Current Guidance |
|
|
| | Class | Recommended Threshold | Status | Notes | |
| |-------|----------------------|--------|-------| |
| | cicada_drone | 0.50 | Confirmed | Natural capture at 83%, AC false positive at 92% — use RMS to disambiguate | |
| | frog | 0.50 | Confirmed | Validated at 51%; chorus peaks at 80-99%. RMS >0.004 increases confidence | |
| | cricket_katydid | 0.50 | Tentative | Summer chorus data needed for natural threshold | |
| | grasshopper | 0.80 | Data-limited | Only 183 training clips; most captures likely noise | |
| | bee | 0.80 | Data-limited | Only 43 training clips; night detections are false positives | |
|
|
| ## How Thresholds Were Determined |
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|
| ### Cicada (83% natural confirmed) |
|
|
| The first natural cicada capture scored 83% with RMS 0.009. Playback tests |
| hit 99-100%. However, an AC window unit also scores 92% on this class with |
| background <2%. The 80%+ range includes both real cicadas and false positives. |
|
|
| **Disambiguation:** RMS. Real cicada at 83% had RMS 0.009. AC at 92% had |
| RMS 0.02+. A high-confidence cicada detection with high RMS may be mechanical. |
|
|
| ### Frog (51% natural confirmed) |
|
|
| A frog detected at only 51% was confirmed real by the user. The frog chorus |
| ranged from 55% (early evening, quiet) to 99.97% (peak chorus, loud). |
|
|
| **Guidance:** Any capture above 50% frog with RMS >0.004 is worth review. |
| Loud captures (RMS >0.015) at 80-99% are highly likely real. |
|
|
| ### Bee (no natural data) |
|
|
| The bee class has no known real detections. All captures to date are false |
| positives: weed whacker at 98%, night ambient noise at 50-70%. The true bee |
| threshold cannot be established without natural captures. |
|
|
| **Guidance:** Discard bee detections at night. Treat day detections below |
| 80% as noise. |
|
|
| ## Production vs Testing Threshold |
|
|
| | Context | Threshold | Rationale | |
| |---------|-----------|-----------| |
| | **Production capture** | 0.30 default | Favor recall — a few false positives are cheaper than missed detections | |
| | **Automated decision** | 0.80 minimum | Only act on high-confidence predictions without human review | |
| | **Research / scanning** | 0.30 | Cast a wide net; review all uncertain captures manually | |
|
|
| The 0.30 default is conservative for capture. It produces some uncertain |
| clips but the cost of missed insects is higher than the cost of reviewing |
| a few extra WAVs. |
|
|
| ## RMS Noise Floor |
|
|
| The sidecar skips inference for WAVs below the RMS noise floor (default |
| 0.002). This was calibrated from Pine Hollow ambient measurements and |
| corresponds to quiet background with no detectable acoustic activity. |
|
|
| Playback sessions may need a lower floor (0.001) for quiet phone speakers. |
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