Feature extraction is an important component of a pattern recognition system. It performs two tasks: transforming input parameter vector into a feature vector and/or reducing its dimensionality. A well-defined feature extraction algorithm makes the classification process more effective and efficient. Two popular methods for feature extraction are linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and principal component analysis (PCA). In this paper, the minimum classification error (MCE) training algorithm (which was originally proposed for optimizing classifiers) is investigated for feature extraction. A generalized MCE (GMCE) training algorithm is proposed to mend the shortcomings of the MCE training algorithm. LDA, PCA, and MCE and GMCE algorithms extract features through linear transformation. Support vector machine (SVM) is a recently developed pattern classification algorithm, which uses non-linear kernel functions to achieve non-linear decision boundaries in the parametric space. In this paper, SVM is also investigated and compared to linear feature extraction algorithms.