Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!esosun!ucsdhub!sdcsvax!amos!joe
From: joe@amos.ling.ucsd.edu (Shadow)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets
Subject: Re: Learning arbitrary transfer functio
Message-ID: <5572@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>
Date: 29 Nov 88 20:30:23 GMT
References: <399@uvaee.ee.virginia.EDU> <163400002@inmet>
Sender: nobody@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU
Reply-To: joe@amos.UUCP (Shadow)
Organization: Univ. of Calif., San Diego
Lines: 49

In article <163400002@inmet> ryer@inmet.UUCP writes:
 
>>    So, how do human's learn non linear functions ?
>>  
>>        : you learn that x^2, for instance, is X times X.
>>  
>>     And how about X times Y ? How do humans learn that ?
>>  
>>        : you memorize it, for single digits, and
>>        : for more than a single digit, you multiply streams
>>           of digits together in a carry routine.
 
>Although my knowledge of neural nets is limited, I won't buy what is
>written above.  Most persons can, for example, throw a baseball more
>or less at the target in spite of gravity.  This requires a non-linear
>calculation.  This is not done via multiplication tables.  Sure it is
>done by "experience", but so are neural network calculations.
 
Hmm. I'm no expert on human learning, but I don't buy what's written above.

When I throw a baseball off the top of a ten-story building, I am very
bad at hitting that at which I aimed (e.g., students). This would lead
me to theorize that I have not learned a non-linear relationship.

All of this aside, I must note that the original article was misinterpreted.
That was unfortunate, as I was theorizing on ways to improve generalized
learning of non-linear mathematical relationships for data outside
of the training domain... results in this area were usally fairly dismal
in the experiments which I conducted.

Ideas:

	1. how about linear units on the output layer ?
	   (Idea care of Jeff Elman, ICS, CRL)
	2. sub-networks trained for sub-tasks.
	   (sub-networks mentioned to me in passing by Jeff Elman, ICS,CRL)

I welcome comments,
and actually, I would really like to hear from people who are experts on
human learning. This topic is obviously too hot for me to handle.

(feel free to send mail)

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= "But why not play god ? "		-   joe@amos.ling.ucsd.edu	=
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