Why use log-probability estimates in GaussianNB [scikit-learn]?

Question

I'm currently using scikit-learn's GaussianNB package.

I've noticed that I can choose to return results for the classification several different ways. One way to return a classification is using the predict_log_proba method.

Why would I choose to use predict_log_proba versus predict_proba versus predict?

Answer 1

• predict just gives you the class for every example
• predict_proba gives you the probability for every class, and predict is just taking the class which maximal probability
• predict_log_proba gives you the logarithm of the probabilities, this is often handier as probabilities can become very, very small