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A comparison of speciation, extinction, and complexification in neuroevolution with and without selection pressure

Published: 12 July 2008 Publication History

Abstract

In the study of biological evolution, neutral theories are invoked by some researchers to explain the dynamics of evolving populations regardless of selection pressure. The current study compares the dynamics of speciation, extinction, and complexification in two sets of populations of evolving artificial neural networks. One set of populations evolved under selection pressure, their survival dependent upon performance at a control task, while the other set of populations had survivors chosen randomly. Despite predictions to the contrary, the results showed significant differences in all three dynamics, suggesting that neutral models are incomplete explanations at best and that selection pressure constrains evolutionary search in very specific ways.

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  1. A comparison of speciation, extinction, and complexification in neuroevolution with and without selection pressure

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    GECCO '08: Proceedings of the 10th annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation
    July 2008
    1814 pages
    ISBN:9781605581309
    DOI:10.1145/1389095
    • Conference Chair:
    • Conor Ryan,
    • Editor:
    • Maarten Keijzer
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    Published: 12 July 2008

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    Author Tags

    1. complexification
    2. extinction
    3. neuroevolution
    4. neutral theory
    5. selection pressure
    6. speciation

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