Cited by 409Machine Learning and AlgorithmsMachine Learning and Data ClassificationStochastic Gradient Optimization Techniques

Algorithmic Stability and Sanity-Check Bounds for Leave-One-Out Cross-Validation

Kearns, Michael, Ron, Dana·1999·Neural Computation

Abstract

In this article we prove sanity-check bounds for the error of the leave-oneout cross-validation estimate of the generalization error: that is, bounds showing that the worst-case error of this estimate is not much worse than that of the training error estimate. The name sanity check refers to the fact that although we often expect the leave-one-out estimate to perform considerably better than the training error estimate, we are here only seeking assurance that its performance will not be considerably worse. Perhaps surprisingly, such assurance has been given only for limited cases in the prior literature on cross-validation. Any nontrivial bound on the error of leave-one-out must rely on some notion of algorithmic stability. Previous bounds relied on the rather strong notion of hypothesis stability, whose application was primarily limited to nearest-neighbor and other local algorithms. Here we introduce the new and weaker notion of error stability and apply it to obtain sanity-check bounds for leave-one-out for other classes of learning algorithms, including training error minimization procedures and Bayesian algorithms. We also provide lower bounds demonstrating the necessity of some form of error stability for proving bounds on the error of the leave-one-out estimate, and the fact that for training error minimization algorithms, in the worst case such bounds must still depend on the Vapnik-Chervonenkis dimension of the hypothesis class.

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Crossref · 10.1162/089976699300016304

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Authors
Kearns, M., & Ron, D.
Affiliations
  • AT&T (United States) (US)
  • Tel Aviv University (IL)
Venue
Neural Computation
Published
1999-08-01
Volume
11
Issue
6
Pages
1427-1453
ISSN
  • 0899-7667 (ISSN-L)
  • 1530-888X
OpenAlex
W2138263042
Cited by
407
References
18
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 35 · 2019: 46 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 22 · 2016: 27 · 2015: 18 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 24 · 2012: 14
FWCI
4.55
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Neural Computation (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • National Science Foundation
  • Office of Naval Research
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Machine Learning and Algorithms
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Machine Learning and Data Classification
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Stochastic Gradient Optimization Techniques
Keywords
leave-one-out cross-validation, generalization error estimation, algorithm stability, VC dimension, lower bounds
MeSH terms
Algorithms, Neural Networks, Computer

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