Fast and Multiphase Rates for Nearest Neighbor Classifiers

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Yang, Pengkun, Zhang, Jingzhao
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Yang, Pengkun
Zhang, Jingzhao
author_facet Yang, Pengkun
Zhang, Jingzhao
contents We study the scaling of classification error rates with respect to the size of the training dataset. In contrast to classical results where rates are minimax optimal for a problem class, this work starts with the empirical observation that, even for a fixed data distribution, the error scaling can have \emph{diverse} rates across different ranges of sample size. To understand when and why the error rate is non-uniform, we theoretically analyze nearest neighbor classifiers. We show that an error scaling law can have fine-grained rates: in the early phase, the test error depends polynomially on the data dimension and decreases fast; whereas in the later phase, the error depends exponentially on the data dimension and decreases slowly. Our analysis highlights the complexity of the data distribution in determining the test error. When the data are distributed benignly, we show that the generalization error of nearest neighbor classifier can depend polynomially, instead of exponentially, on the data dimension.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2308_08247
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Fast and Multiphase Rates for Nearest Neighbor Classifiers
Yang, Pengkun
Zhang, Jingzhao
Machine Learning
Statistics Theory
We study the scaling of classification error rates with respect to the size of the training dataset. In contrast to classical results where rates are minimax optimal for a problem class, this work starts with the empirical observation that, even for a fixed data distribution, the error scaling can have \emph{diverse} rates across different ranges of sample size. To understand when and why the error rate is non-uniform, we theoretically analyze nearest neighbor classifiers. We show that an error scaling law can have fine-grained rates: in the early phase, the test error depends polynomially on the data dimension and decreases fast; whereas in the later phase, the error depends exponentially on the data dimension and decreases slowly. Our analysis highlights the complexity of the data distribution in determining the test error. When the data are distributed benignly, we show that the generalization error of nearest neighbor classifier can depend polynomially, instead of exponentially, on the data dimension.
title Fast and Multiphase Rates for Nearest Neighbor Classifiers
topic Machine Learning
Statistics Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.08247