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European Conference on Artificial Life

ECAL 2005: Advances in Artificial Life pp 312–321Cite as

Analysing the Evolvability of Neural Network Agents Through Structural Mutations

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 3630))

Abstract

This paper investigates evolvability of artificial neural networks within an artificial life environment. Five different structural mutations are investigated, including adaptive evolution, structure duplication, and incremental changes. The total evolvability indicator, Etotal, and the evolvability function through time, are calculated in each instance, in addition to other functional attributes of the system. The results indicate that incremental modifications to networks, and incorporating an adaptive element into the evolution process itself, significantly increases neural network evolvability within open-ended artificial life simulations.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, 11-43 Bath Street, London, EC1V 9EL

    Ehud Schlessinger & R. Beau Lotto

  2. Department of Computer Science, University College London, Malet Place, London, WC1E 6BT

    Peter J. Bentley

Authors
  1. Ehud Schlessinger
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  2. Peter J. Bentley
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  3. R. Beau Lotto
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Natural Computation Group, University of Kent, CT2 7NF, Canterbury, UK

    Mathieu S. Capcarrère

  2. Computing Laboratory and Centre for BioMedical Informatics, University of Kent, CT2 7NF, Canterbury, UK

    Alex A. Freitas

  3. Computer Science Department, University College London, London, UK

    Peter J. Bentley

  4. Computing Laboratory, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

    Colin G. Johnson

  5. Department of Electronics, University of York, YO10 5DD, Heslington, York, UK

    Jon Timmis

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© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Schlessinger, E., Bentley, P.J., Lotto, R.B. (2005). Analysing the Evolvability of Neural Network Agents Through Structural Mutations. In: Capcarrère, M.S., Freitas, A.A., Bentley, P.J., Johnson, C.G., Timmis, J. (eds) Advances in Artificial Life. ECAL 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 3630. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11553090_32

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11553090_32

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-28848-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-31816-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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