What is overfitting, and how can you prevent it?
What is overfitting, and how can you prevent it?
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Khushi Singh
29-Apr-2025The practice of overfitting occurs frequently in machine learning systems which improperly learn training data details such as noise and outliers making generalization to new data ineffective. The model becomes overfit when it contains an impractically complex structure which has more parameters than available data points. A model that masters training data demonstrates poor performance for predicting validation and test sets.
The phenomenon of overfitting leads to high training results yet it produces significant reductions in accuracy when validating or testing data. Memorization of training data occurs instead of pattern detection because the model uses training data as its main basis defeating the goal of predictive modeling.
The prevention of overfitting requires these techniques to be used:
Overfitting leads to lowered predictive strength because it affects how a model works on genuine real-world data. The optimal model requires finding the correct level of complexity where it fits between basic models that are too simple and complex models that are too detailed while maintaining reliable performance on unknown situations.