Understanding Overfitting in Machine Learning Models
Title: Understanding Overfitting in Machine Learning Models
Abstract:
Overfitting is one of the most common challenges in supervised learning. This paper explains the
phenomenon of overfitting, how to detect it, and strategies to prevent it using cross-validation, regularization,
and pruning techniques.
1. Introduction
Overfitting occurs when a machine learning model captures noise instead of signal in the data. The model
performs well on the training data but poorly on new, unseen data.
2. Causes of Overfitting
- High model complexity
- Small training datasets
- Too many training epochs
3. Detection Techniques
- Use of validation set
- K-fold cross-validation
- Learning curves
4. Solutions
- L1/L2 regularization
- Early stopping
- Simpler models
5. Conclusion
A balanced model minimizes both bias and variance. Overfitting remains a key consideration in model
evaluation.
References:
- Goodfellow et al., Deep Learning, 2016.
Understanding Overfitting in Machine Learning Models
- Géron, Hands-On ML with Scikit-Learn, Keras & TensorFlow, 2022.