# Parameter importance for categorical variables

**URL:** <https://community.wandb.ai/t/parameter-importance-for-categorical-variables/2966>\
**Category:** W&B Help\
**Tags:** sweeps\
**Created:** [August 22, 2022, 7:13am UTC](https://community.wandb.ai/t/parameter-importance-for-categorical-variables/2966 "2022-08-22T07:13:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![styrbjornkall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@styrbjornkall](https://community.wandb.ai/u/styrbjornkall)\
**Post date:** [August 22, 2022, 7:13am UTC](https://community.wandb.ai/t/parameter-importance-for-categorical-variables/2966/1 "2022-08-22T07:13:28Z")

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Hi!

I have a conditional variable (True/False) in my sweep for freezing a layer or not. It gets quite high importance and a high positive correlation. How do I know if the “True” or the “False” is the “higher” value? In other words, how do I know which to set it to? Is it based on the order specified in the sweep-config? Unfortunately I cannot see any clear pattern in the runs due to a lot of other parameters also being varied at the time in my Bayesian sweep.

Thank you!

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**Author:** ![mohammadbakir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a9a28c/32.png) [@mohammadbakir](https://community.wandb.ai/u/mohammadbakir)\
**Post date:** [August 24, 2022, 9:05pm UTC](https://community.wandb.ai/t/parameter-importance-for-categorical-variables/2966/2 "2022-08-24T21:05:59Z")

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Hi @styrbjornkall , I did a brief review of the sweep parallel coordinates chart in your `freezing_sweep` project, and based on the results, both `True` and `False` appear to have equitable influence on your results. It is difficult to interpret boolean results, yes, and our parameter importance panel won’t tell you which value is the “higher” value, just that relative importance of the hyperparameter in respect to the chosen metric.

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**Author:** ![mohammadbakir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a9a28c/32.png) [@mohammadbakir](https://community.wandb.ai/u/mohammadbakir)\
**Post date:** [August 30, 2022, 12:29am UTC](https://community.wandb.ai/t/parameter-importance-for-categorical-variables/2966/3 "2022-08-30T00:29:22Z")

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HI @styrbjornkall , since we have not heard back from you we are going to close this request. If you would like to re-open the conversation, please let us know!

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/wandb/original/1X/366b649231631dbab896843020da0056074ac79d.png) [@system](https://community.wandb.ai/u/system)\
**Post date:** [October 29, 2022, 12:29am UTC](https://community.wandb.ai/t/parameter-importance-for-categorical-variables/2966/4 "2022-10-29T00:29:38Z")

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