Permutation-based multi-objective evolutionary feature selection for high-dimensional data

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Espinosa, Raquel, Sánchez, Gracia, Palma, José, Jiménez, Fernando
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866916581706039296
author Espinosa, Raquel
Sánchez, Gracia
Palma, José
Jiménez, Fernando
author_facet Espinosa, Raquel
Sánchez, Gracia
Palma, José
Jiménez, Fernando
contents Feature selection is a critical step in the analysis of high-dimensional data, where the number of features often vastly exceeds the number of samples. Effective feature selection not only improves model performance and interpretability but also reduces computational costs and mitigates the risk of overfitting. In this context, we propose a novel feature selection method for high-dimensional data, based on the well-known permutation feature importance approach, but extending it to evaluate subsets of attributes rather than individual features. This extension more effectively captures how interactions among features influence model performance. The proposed method employs a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm to search for candidate feature subsets, with the objectives of maximizing the degradation in model performance when the selected features are shuffled, and minimizing the cardinality of the feature subset. The effectiveness of our method has been validated on a set of 24 publicly available high-dimensional datasets for classification and regression tasks, and compared against 9 well-established feature selection methods designed for high-dimensional problems, including the conventional permutation feature importance method. The results demonstrate the ability of our approach in balancing accuracy and computational efficiency, providing a powerful tool for feature selection in complex, high-dimensional datasets.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_14310
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Permutation-based multi-objective evolutionary feature selection for high-dimensional data
Espinosa, Raquel
Sánchez, Gracia
Palma, José
Jiménez, Fernando
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Feature selection is a critical step in the analysis of high-dimensional data, where the number of features often vastly exceeds the number of samples. Effective feature selection not only improves model performance and interpretability but also reduces computational costs and mitigates the risk of overfitting. In this context, we propose a novel feature selection method for high-dimensional data, based on the well-known permutation feature importance approach, but extending it to evaluate subsets of attributes rather than individual features. This extension more effectively captures how interactions among features influence model performance. The proposed method employs a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm to search for candidate feature subsets, with the objectives of maximizing the degradation in model performance when the selected features are shuffled, and minimizing the cardinality of the feature subset. The effectiveness of our method has been validated on a set of 24 publicly available high-dimensional datasets for classification and regression tasks, and compared against 9 well-established feature selection methods designed for high-dimensional problems, including the conventional permutation feature importance method. The results demonstrate the ability of our approach in balancing accuracy and computational efficiency, providing a powerful tool for feature selection in complex, high-dimensional datasets.
title Permutation-based multi-objective evolutionary feature selection for high-dimensional data
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.14310