An asymptotic analysis of AdaBoost in the binary classification case

Recent work has shown that combining multiple versions of weak classifiers such as decision trees or neural networks results in reduced test set error. To study this in greater detail, we analyze the asymptotic behavior of AdaBoost type algorithms. The theoretical analysis establishes the relation between the distribution of margins of the training examples and the generated voting classification rule. The paper shows asymptotic experimental results for the binary classification case underlining the theoretical findings. Finally, the relation between the model complexity and noise in the training data, and how to improve AdaBoost type algorithms in practice are discussed.