Average-case analysis of a nearest neighbor algorithm

In this paper we present an average-case analysis of the nearest neighbor algorithm, a simple induction method that has been studied by many researchers. Our analysis assumes a conjunctive target concept, noise-free Boolean attributes, and a uniform distribution over the instance space. We calculate the probability that the algorithm will encounter a test instance that is distance d from the prototype of the concept, along with the probability that the nearest stored training case is distance e from this test instance. From this we compute the probability of correct classification as a function of the number of observed training cases, the number of relevant attributes, and the number of irrelevant attributes. We also explore the behavioral implications of the analysis by presentin