Wrappers for Feature Subset Selection

Authors: 
Kohavi, R.; John, G.H.
Author: 
Kohavi, R
John, G
Year: 
1997
Venue: 
Artificial Intelligence, 97, 1997
URL: 
http://abee.cs.ualberta.ca/Library/mlrg_files/papers/kohavi97wrappers.ps.gz
Citations: 
4115
Citations range: 
1000s

In the feature subset selection problem, a learning algorithm is faced with the problem of selecting a relevant subset of features upon which to focus its attention, while ignoring the rest. To achieve the best possible performance with a particular learning algorithm on a particular training set, a feature subset selection method should consider how the algorithm and the training set interact. We explore the relation between optimal feature subset selection and relevance. Our wrapper method searches for an optimal feature subset tailored to a particular algorithm and a domain. We study the strengths and weaknesses of the wrapper approach and show a series of improved designs. We compare the wrapper approach to induction without feature subset selection and to Relief, a lter approach to feature subset selection. Signicant improvement in accuracy is achieved for some datasets for the two families of induction algorithms used: decision trees and Naive-Bayes.