Neural networks

Chapter 20, Section 5

Chapter 20, Section 5 1

 Outline
♦ Brains
♦ Neural networks
♦ Perceptrons
♦ Multilayer perceptrons
♦ Applications of neural networks

Chapter 20, Section 5 2

 Brains
1011 neurons of > 20 types, 1014 synapses, 1ms–10ms cycle time
Signals are noisy “spike trains” of electrical potential

Axonal arborization

Axon from another cell

Synapse
Dendrite Axon

Nucleus

Synapses

Cell body or Soma

Chapter 20, Section 5 3

 McCulloch–Pitts “unit”
Output is a “squashed” linear function of the inputs:
ai ← g(ini) = g Σj Wj,iaj
 

Bias Weight
a0 = −1 ai = g(ini)
W0,i
g
ini
Σ
Wj,i
aj ai

Input Input Activation Output

Links Function Function Output Links

A gross oversimplification of real neurons, but its purpose is

to develop understanding of what networks of simple units can do

Chapter 20, Section 5 4

 Activation functions

g(ini) g(ini)

+1 +1

ini ini
(a) (b)

(a) is a step function or threshold function

(b) is a sigmoid function 1/(1 + e−x)
Changing the bias weight W0,i moves the threshold location

Chapter 20, Section 5 5

 Implementing logical functions
W0 = 1.5 W0 = 0.5 W0 = – 0.5

W1 = 1 W1 = 1
W1 = –1
W2 = 1 W2 = 1

AND OR NOT

McCulloch and Pitts: every Boolean function can be implemented

Chapter 20, Section 5 6

 Network structures
Feed-forward networks:
– single-layer perceptrons
– multi-layer perceptrons
Feed-forward networks implement functions, have no internal state
Recurrent networks:
– Hopfield networks have symmetric weights (Wi,j = Wj,i)
g(x) = sign(x), ai = ± 1; holographic associative memory
– Boltzmann machines use stochastic activation functions,
≈ MCMC in Bayes nets
– recurrent neural nets have directed cycles with delays
⇒ have internal state (like flip-flops), can oscillate etc.

Chapter 20, Section 5 7

 Feed-forward example

W1,3
1 3
W3,5
W1,4
5
W2,3 W4,5
2 4
W2,4

Feed-forward network = a parameterized family of nonlinear functions:

a5 = g(W3,5 · a3 + W4,5 · a4)
= g(W3,5 · g(W1,3 · a1 + W2,3 · a2) + W4,5 · g(W1,4 · a1 + W2,4 · a2))
Adjusting weights changes the function: do learning this way!

Chapter 20, Section 5 8

 Single-layer perceptrons

Perceptron output
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2 4
0 2
-4 -2 0 x2
-2
Input Output x1
0 2 -4
Wj,i 4
Units Units

Output units all operate separately—no shared weights

Adjusting weights moves the location, orientation, and steepness of cliff

Chapter 20, Section 5 9

 Expressiveness of perceptrons
Consider a perceptron with g = step function (Rosenblatt, 1957, 1960)
Can represent AND, OR, NOT, majority, etc., but not XOR
Represents a linear separator in input space:
Σj Wj xj > 0 or W · x > 0
x1 x1 x1

1 1 1

0 0 0
0 1 x2 0 1 x2 0 1 x2
(a) x1 and x2 (b) x1 or x2 (c) x1 xor x2

Minsky & Papert (1969) pricked the neural network balloon

Chapter 20, Section 5 10

 Perceptron learning
Learn by adjusting weights to reduce error on training set
The squared error for an example with input x and true output y is
1 2 1
E = Err ≡ (y − hW(x))2 ,
2 2
Perform optimization search by gradient descent:
∂E ∂Err ∂  n
y − g(Σj = 0Wj xj )

= Err × = Err ×
∂Wj ∂Wj ∂Wj
= −Err × g 0(in) × xj
Simple weight update rule:
Wj ← Wj + α × Err × g 0(in) × xj
E.g., +ve error ⇒ increase network output
⇒ increase weights on +ve inputs, decrease on -ve inputs

Chapter 20, Section 5 11

 Perceptron learning contd.
Perceptron learning rule converges to a consistent function
for any linearly separable data set
Proportion correct on test set

Proportion correct on test set

1 1
0.9 0.9
0.8 0.8
0.7 0.7
0.6 Perceptron 0.6
Decision tree
0.5 0.5 Perceptron
Decision tree
0.4 0.4
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Training set size - MAJORITY on 11 inputs Training set size - RESTAURANT data

Perceptron learns majority function easily, DTL is hopeless

DTL learns restaurant function easily, perceptron cannot represent it

Chapter 20, Section 5 12

 Multilayer perceptrons
Layers are usually fully connected;
numbers of hidden units typically chosen by hand
Output units ai

Wj,i

Hidden units aj

Wk,j

Input units ak

Chapter 20, Section 5 13

 Expressiveness of MLPs
All continuous functions w/ 2 layers, all functions w/ 3 layers

hW(x1, x2) hW(x1, x2)

1 1
0.8 0.8
0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4
0.2 4 0.2 4
0 2 0 2
-4 -2 0 x2 -4 -2 0 x2
0 -2 0 -2
x1 2 4 -4 x1 2 4 -4

Combine two opposite-facing threshold functions to make a ridge

Combine two perpendicular ridges to make a bump
Add bumps of various sizes and locations to fit any surface
Proof requires exponentially many hidden units (cf DTL proof)
Chapter 20, Section 5 14
 Back-propagation learning
Output layer: same as for single-layer perceptron,
Wj,i ← Wj,i + α × aj × ∆i
where ∆i = Err i × g 0(in i)
Hidden layer: back-propagate the error from the output layer:
∆j = g 0(in j ) Wj,i∆i .
X

Update rule for weights in hidden layer:

Wk,j ← Wk,j + α × ak × ∆j .
(Most neuroscientists deny that back-propagation occurs in the brain)

Chapter 20, Section 5 15

 Back-propagation derivation
The squared error on a single example is defined as
1X
E= (yi − ai)2 ,
2 i
where the sum is over the nodes in the output layer.
∂E ∂ai ∂g(in i)
= −(yi − ai) = −(yi − ai)
∂Wj,i ∂Wj,i ∂Wj,i
∂in ∂
 
i
= −(yi − ai)g 0(in i) = −(yi − ai)g 0(in i) Wj,iaj 
 X

∂Wj,i ∂Wj,i j
= −(yi − ai)g 0(in i)aj = −aj ∆i

Chapter 20, Section 5 16

 Back-propagation derivation contd.

∂E ∂ai ∂g(in i)
= − (yi − ai) = − (yi − ai)
X X

∂Wk,j i ∂Wk,j i ∂Wk,j

∂in ∂
 
i
= − (yi − ai)g 0(in i) = − ∆i Wj,iaj 
X X X

i ∂Wk,j i ∂Wk,j j
∂aj ∂g(in j )
= − ∆iWj,i = − ∆iWj,i
X X

i ∂Wk,j i ∂Wk,j
∂in j
= − ∆iWj,ig 0(in j )
X

i ∂Wk,j
∂
 

= − ∆iWj,ig 0(in j ) Wk,j ak 

X  X

i ∂Wk,j k
= − ∆iWj,ig 0(in j )ak = −ak ∆j
X

Chapter 20, Section 5 17

 Back-propagation learning contd.
At each epoch, sum gradient updates for all examples and apply
Training curve for 100 restaurant examples: finds exact fit
14
Total error on training set

12
10
8
6
4
2
0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Number of epochs

Typical problems: slow convergence, local minima

Chapter 20, Section 5 18

 Back-propagation learning contd.
Learning curve for MLP with 4 hidden units:
1
Proportion correct on test set

0.9

0.8

0.7

0.6 Decision tree

Multilayer network
0.5

0.4
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Training set size - RESTAURANT data

MLPs are quite good for complex pattern recognition tasks,

but resulting hypotheses cannot be understood easily

Chapter 20, Section 5 19

 Handwritten digit recognition

3-nearest-neighbor = 2.4% error

400–300–10 unit MLP = 1.6% error
LeNet: 768–192–30–10 unit MLP = 0.9% error
Current best (kernel machines, vision algorithms) ≈ 0.6% error

Chapter 20, Section 5 20

 Summary
Most brains have lots of neurons; each neuron ≈ linear–threshold unit (?)
Perceptrons (one-layer networks) insufficiently expressive
Multi-layer networks are sufficiently expressive; can be trained by gradient
descent, i.e., error back-propagation
Many applications: speech, driving, handwriting, fraud detection, etc.
Engineering, cognitive modelling, and neural system modelling
subfields have largely diverged

Chapter 20, Section 5 21