Standardization vs Normalization in Pattern Recognition
In Pattern Recognition, standardization and normalization are both
preprocessing techniques used to scale and transform the features of a
dataset before applying a machine learning algorithm.
1. Standardization (also known as Z-score normalization) rescales
the features so that they have the properties of a standard normal
distribution with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. This
transformation maintains the shape of the original distribution but
changes the scale. Standardization is useful when the features have
different units or scales. It helps to give the data a comparable scale
and center the data around 0, which can improve the convergence
of certain algorithms (like gradient descent).
The formula for standardization is:
𝑥standardized=𝑥−mean(𝑥)/std(x)
where 𝑥 is the original feature value, mean(𝑥) is the mean of the
feature values, and std(𝑥) is the standard deviation of the feature
values.
2. Normalization (also known as Min-Max scaling) rescales the
features to a fixed range, usually [0, 1]. It does not change the shape
of the original distribution but squeezes the values into a smaller
range. Normalization is useful when the features have different
ranges and the algorithm being used requires features to be on a
similar scale.
The formula for normalization is:
𝑥normalized=𝑥−min(𝑥)/max(𝑥)−min(𝑥)
where 𝑥 is the original feature value, min(𝑥) is the minimum value of
the feature values, and max(𝑥)is the maximum value of the feature
values.
Standardization is more appropriate when the distribution of the features
is not Gaussian or when the algorithm relies on the mean and standard
deviation of the features, while normalization is more suitable when the
algorithm requires features to be on a similar scale and the features have
different ranges.