What are the limits on step functions as activation functions for neural networks?
I've heard nonlinear functions are needed for universality, but where do step functions stand in this? Are they as limited as linear activation functions? Would they classify as linear?
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I am currently learning a little bit about neural networks. One question I can't really get behind is about how neural networks reflect non-linear behavior. From my understanding there is no possibility to reflect non-linear behavior inside a compact set using a neural network.
For example if I would take the function from this question:
y = x^2
and I would use a neural network with a single input and single output the best the neural network could do for each compact set [x0...xn] is a linear function spanning from one end of the set to the other, as at the end all calculations inside the net are linear.
Do I have some misunderstanding about this concept?
The ANN's capabilties to model non-linear behaviour arise from the (usually) non-linear activation function.
If the activation function is linear, then the process of training the network is just another way to create a linear (or multi-linear) fit of input and output data.
Activation function in neural networks is exactly the part, that brings non-linearity. If you use linear activation function, then you cannot train non-linear model (thus fit quadratic or other non-linear functions).
The part, I guess, you are interested in is Universal Approximation Theorem, which says that any continuous function can be approximated with a neural network with a single hidden layer (some assumptions on activation function are applied thou). Take into account, that this theorem does not say anything on optimization of such a network (it does not guarantee you can train such a network with a specific algorithm, but only that such a network exists). Also it does not say anything on the number of neurons you should use.
You can check following links, to get more details:
Original proof with sigmoid activation function: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.441.7873&rep=rep1&type=pdf
And a more friendly derivation: http://mcneela.github.io/machine_learning/2017/03/21/Universal-Approximation-Theorem.html
I have question:
I always assumed that non-linearity was applied to a neural-network in order to calculate the minimum of a error surface.
If the function is f(x)=mx+b the derivative is always f'(x) = 1.
Is this one of the reasons why non-linearity ( exempli gratia through sigmoid functions which derivative is f'(x)=f(x)*(1-f(x))) is applied?
Thank you very much.
The neural network is a model of your problem, making predictions
for inputs. The loss function is a measure of the accuracy of
predictions with respect to the observed results.
"Linearity" typically refers to the model. A linear model is a very
simple one: many interesting problems can be approximated by linear
functions, but often you need a more sophisticated model.
Since the sequential composition of linear functions is still linear,
the expressiveness of deep networks derives from the fact of inserting
non linear activation functions modulating the output of artificial
neurons (approximating a thresholding filter). These non linear functions
must be derivable to work with the backpropagation algorithm.
Indipendently from the model, the loss function can be "linear" (L1),
such as the sum of absolute deviations, or non linear, such as
mean squared residuals (L2) or other different loss functions. Again,
the loss function must be derivable too.
See for instance this lecture by Hinton et al.
for the discussion of a simple linear model with a L2 loss function
(then enriched with a sigmoid activation function).
I don't quite understand why a sigmoid function is seen as more useful (for neural networks) than a step function... hoping someone can explain this for me. Thanks in advance.
The (Heaviside) step function is typically only useful within single-layer perceptrons, an early type of neural networks that can be used for classification in cases where the input data is linearly separable.
However, multi-layer neural networks or multi-layer perceptrons are of more interest because they are general function approximators and they are able to distinguish data that is not linearly separable.
Multi-layer perceptrons are trained using backpropapagation. A requirement for backpropagation is a differentiable activation function. That's because backpropagation uses gradient descent on this function to update the network weights.
The Heaviside step function is non-differentiable at x = 0 and its derivative is 0 elsewhere. This means gradient descent won't be able to make progress in updating the weights and backpropagation will fail.
The sigmoid or logistic function does not have this shortcoming and this explains its usefulness as an activation function within the field of neural networks.
It depends on the problem you are dealing with. In case of simple binary classification, a step function is appropriate. Sigmoids can be useful when building more biologically realistic networks by introducing noise or uncertainty. Another but compeletely different use of sigmoids is for numerical continuation, i.e. when doing bifurcation analysis with respect to some parameter in the model. Numerical continuation is easier with smooth systems (and very tricky with non-smooth ones).
I have just started programming for Neural networks. I am currently working on understanding how a Backpropogation (BP) neural net works. While the algorithm for training in BP nets is quite straightforward, I was unable to find any text on why the algorithm works. More specifically, I am looking for some mathematical reasoning to justify using sigmoid functions in neural nets, and what makes them mimic almost any data distribution thrown at them.
Thanks!
The sigmoid function introduces non-linearity in the network. Without a non-linear activation function, the net can only learn functions which are linear combinations of its inputs. The result is called universal approximation theorem or Cybenko theorem, after the gentleman who proved it in 1989. Wikipedia is a good place to start, and it has a link to the original paper (the proof is somewhat involved though). The reason why you would use a sigmoid as opposed to something else is that it is continuous and differentiable, its derivative is very fast to compute (as opposed to the derivative of tanh, which has similar properties) and has a limited range (from 0 to 1, exclusive)
I just started playing around with neural networks and, as I would expect, in order to train a neural network effectively there must be some relation between the function to approximate and activation function.
For instance, I had good results using sin(x) as an activation function when approximating cos(x), or two tanh(x) to approximate a gaussian. Now, to approximate a function about which I know nothing I am planning to use a cocktail of activation functions, for instance a hidden layer with some sin, some tanh and a logistic function. In your opinion does this make sens?
Thank you,
Tunnuz
While it is true that different activation functions have different merits (mainly for either biological plausibility or a unique network design like radial basis function networks), in general you be able to use any continuous squashing function and expect to be able to approximate most functions encountered in real world training data.
The two most popular choices are the hyperbolic tangent and the logistic function, since they both have easily calculable derivatives and interesting behavior around the axis.
If neither if those allows you to accurately approximate your function, my first response wouldn't be to change activation functions. Rather, you should first investigate your training set and network training parameters (learning rates, number of units in each pool, weight decay, momentum, etc.).
If your still stuck, step back and make sure your using the right architecture (feed forward vs. simple recurrent vs. full recurrent) and learning algorithm (back-propagation vs. back-prop through time vs. contrastive hebbian vs. evolutionary/global methods).
One side note: Make sure you never use a linear activation function (except for output layers or crazy simple tasks), as these have very well documented limitations, namely the need for linear separability.