Structure of neural networks

HL content: Modeling & Simulation

Introduction

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) or connectionist systems are computing systems vaguely inspired by the biological neural networks that constitute animal brains. Such systems "learn" (i.e. progressively improve performance on) tasks by considering examples, generally without task-specific programming. For example, in image recognition, they might learn to identify images that contain cats by analyzing example images that have been manually labeled as "cat" or "no cat" and using the results to identify cats in other images. They do this without any a priori knowledge about cats, e.g., that they have fur, tails, whiskers and cat-like faces. Instead, they evolve their own set of relevant characteristics from the learning material that they process.

Standards

• Outline the structure of neural networks.

a group or system of interconnected people or things.

Provide an answer from a number of possibilities. Recognize and state briefly a distinguishing fact or feature.

Give a brief account.