A feature regulation application method for hierarchical decision learning systems receives feature regulation training data and invokes a plurality of hierarchical decision learning to create feature subset information output. The method receives learning data and uses the feature subset information and the learning data to create feature subset learning data output. The hierarchical decision learning method uses the feature subset learning data to create hierarchical decision output. The feature regulation method also outputs feature ranking information that can be used to create hierarchical decision output. The invention provides a computationally feasible method for feature selection that considers the hierarchical decision learning systems used for decision making.