During a feature-selection technique, an electronic device calculates combinations of features and noise vectors, where a given combination corresponds to a given feature and a given noise vector. Then, the electronic device determines statistical associations between information specifying types of events and the combinations, where a given statistical association corresponds to the types of events and a given combination. Moreover, the electronic device identifies a noise threshold associated with the combinations. Next, for a group of combinations having statistical associations equal to or greater than the noise threshold, the electronic device selects a subset of the features based at least in part on a first aggregate property of the group of combinations, where the first aggregate property comprises numbers of occurrences of the features in the group of combinations.