Attribute

Attribute may refer to:

Computing

Gaming

Variable and attribute (research)

In science and research, attribute is a characteristic of an object (person, thing, etc.). Attributes are closely related to variables. A variable is a logical set of attributes. Variables can "vary" - for example, be high or low. How high, or how low, is determined by the value of the attribute (and in fact, an attribute could be just the word "low" or "high").(For example see: Binary option)

While an attribute is often intuitive, the variable is the operationalized way in which the attribute is represented for further data processing. In data processing data are often represented by a combination of items (objects organized in rows), and multiple variables (organized in columns).

Values of each variable statistically "vary" (or are distributed) across the variable's domain. Domain is a set of all possible values that a variable is allowed to have. The values are ordered in a logical way and must be defined for each variable. Domains can be bigger or smaller. The smallest possible domains have those variables that can only have two values, also called binary (or dichotomous) variables. Bigger domains have non-dichotomous variables and the ones with a higher level of measurement. (See also domain of discourse.)

Property (philosophy)

In modern philosophy and mathematics, a property is a characteristic of an object; a red object is said to have the property of redness. The property may be considered a form of object in its own right, able to possess other properties. A property however differs from individual objects in that it may be instantiated, and often in more than one thing. It differs from the logical/mathematical concept of class by not having any concept of extensionality, and from the philosophical concept of class in that a property is considered to be distinct from the objects which possess it. Understanding how different individual entities (or particulars) can in some sense have some of the same properties is the basis of the problem of universals. The terms attribute and quality have similar meanings.

Essential and accidental properties

In classical Aristotelian terminology, a property (Greek: idion, Latin: proprium) is one of the predicables. It is a non-essential quality of a species (like an accident), but a quality which is nevertheless characteristically present in members of that species (and in no others). For example, "ability to laugh" may be considered a special characteristic of human beings. However, "laughter" is not an essential quality of the species human, whose Aristotelian definition of "rational animal" does not require laughter. Thus, in the classical framework, properties are characteristic, but non-essential, qualities.