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From what I understand, there is a relationship between bias and underfitting; as well as variance and overfitting.

Is a 'biased model' another word for an 'underfitted model'? Likewise, is a "varianced' model" another word for an 'overfitted model'?

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    $\begingroup$ I understand what you are trying to say, but I don't think "varianced" is a word, even in statistics. ;-) $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 21, 2014 at 2:28
  • $\begingroup$ Hahahahaha, yeah I wasn't too sure $\endgroup$
    – user46925
    Commented Jun 21, 2014 at 2:35
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    $\begingroup$ I've seen high variance models described as unstable (or more specifically the model estimates are unstable). $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 21, 2014 at 4:35
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    $\begingroup$ Think about the cluster of arrows in target practice. The centroid of the cluster is the "mean" while its diameter is related to its variance. If the mean is close to the center of the target then your archer is accurate. If the standard deviation is small then the archer is precise. ... so there is a joke about two statisticians hunting, one had an arrow go 1 meter to the left, the other one meter to the right and they high-fived because they averaged out to a successful hit. ... bias is about "expected" distance from target to fit while variance is variance of that distance. $\endgroup$ Commented Jun 21, 2014 at 5:16

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A good explanation of the relationship between these concepts is in

Briefly put, a neural network can achieve zero variance very easily by underfitting: just return a constant output value regardless of the input values. This is a case of extreme under-fitting, and there will be a big bias (tendency to be systematically off target) because the network made no effort to fit the training data.

A neural network can achieve zero bias easily by overfitting: just make it big and complicated enough to ensure that the outputs exactly match for all the data points from the training data. This is an extreme case of over-fitting, and assuming that there is actually noise in the training data set, you will end up with a large variance when you apply it to different data sets.

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I suppose in a "perfect information about the universe" sense of the word, a biased model is underfitted. Philosophically, it's correct - the bias would go away if you could just include one (or more) terms. Practically speaking, issues like residual confounding may mean a model is biased even if the fit of the known variables is perfect.

As with others, I haven't heard of "varianced" as a term, but have heard overfitted models with very high errors around their estimates referred to as unstable, as mild changes in data, etc. produce wildly different estimates.

But in general, I think viewing over vs. underfitting through the lense of the bias vs. precision tradeoff is a valid one.

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