Method
- Divide the available data into training and validation sets.
- Use a large number of hidden units.
- Use very small random initial values.
- Use a slow learning rate.
- Compute the validation error rate periodically during training.
- Stop training when the validation error rate "starts to go up".
It is crucial to realize that the validation error is not a good estimate of the generalization error. One method for getting an unbiased estimate of the generalization error is to run the net on a third set of data, the test set, that is not used at all during the training process. The error on the test set gives estimate on generalization; to have the outputs of the net approximate target values given inputs that are not in the training set.
Read more about this topic: Early Stopping
Famous quotes containing the word method:
““I have usually found that there was method in his madness.”
“Some folk might say there was madness in his method.””
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“Unlike Descartes, we own and use our beliefs of the moment, even in the midst of philosophizing, until by what is vaguely called scientific method we change them here and there for the better. Within our own total evolving doctrine, we can judge truth as earnestly and absolutely as can be, subject to correction, but that goes without saying.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“There is no method but to be very intelligent.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)