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Can anyone tell me the difference between the following in data mining? I am taking a class this semester and the professor is using the terms so frequently, I don't know what these mean anymore.

  • Data point
  • attribute
  • feature
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  • $\begingroup$ Have your asked your professor? $\endgroup$
    – Raphael
    Feb 8, 2013 at 8:39
  • $\begingroup$ @Raphael I did not. The office hours are not until next Thursday. $\endgroup$
    – Sid
    Feb 8, 2013 at 15:50

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An attribute is usually synonymous with feature, both of which refer to a single dimension. A data point probably refers to a complete record. That is, a data point is a collection of features.

For example, imagine we have a bunch of data on people and we want to classify each one as being male or female. Specifically, for each person (record), we have the following attributes (features): height, weight, and eye color. A data point would be one person's 3-dimensional record (e.g. [74in, 200lbs, brown] or [61, 125, blue]).

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