The Recurrent Cascade-Correlation Architecture

Part of Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 3 (NIPS 1990)

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Authors

Scott Fahlman

Abstract

Recurrent Cascade-Correlation CRCC) is a recurrent version of the Cascade(cid:173) Correlation learning architecture of Fah I man and Lebiere [Fahlman, 1990]. RCC can learn from examples to map a sequence of inputs into a desired sequence of outputs. New hidden units with recurrent connections are added to the network as needed during training. In effect, the network builds up a finite-state machine tailored specifically for the current problem. RCC retains the advantages of Cascade-Correlation: fast learning, good generalization, automatic construction of a near-minimal multi-layered network, and incremental training.

1 THE ARCHITECTURE

Cascade-Correlation [Fahlman, 1990] is a supervised learning architecture that builds a near-minimal multi-layer network topology in the course of training. Initially the network contains only inputs, output units, and the connections between them. This single layer of connections is trained (using the Quickprop algorithm [Fahlman, 1988]) to minimize the error. When no further improvement is seen in the level of error, the network's performance is evaluated. If the error is small enough, we stop. Otherwise we add a new hidden unit to the network in an attempt to reduce the residual error. To create a new hidden unit, we begin with a pool of candidate units, each of which receives weighted connections from the network's inputs and from any hidden units already present in the net. The outputs of these candidate units are not yet connected into the active network. Multiple passes through the training set are run, and each candidate unit adjusts its incoming weights to maximize the correlation between its output and the residual error in the active net. When the correlation scores stop improving, we choose the best candidate, freeze its incoming weights, and add it to the network. This process is called "tenure." After tenure,