AI Glossary/Overfitting
Machine Learning

Overfitting

When a model learns training data too well, including noise, and performs poorly on new data.

In-depth explanation

Overfitting occurs when a model becomes too complex and memorizes the training data rather than learning generalizable patterns. Signs include high training accuracy but low validation accuracy. Prevention techniques include regularization, cross-validation, early stopping, dropout, and using more training data.

Examples

A decision tree that grows too deep
A neural network trained too long

Related terms

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