Neutrality in evolutionary algorithms... What do we know?

Abstract

Over the last years, the effects of neutrality have attracted the attention of many researchers in the Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) community. A mutation from one gene to another is considered as neutral if this modification does not affect the phenotype. This article provides a general overview on the work carried out on neutrality in EAs. Using as a framework the origin of neutrality and its study in different paradigms of EAs (e. g., Genetic Algorithms, Genetic Programming), we discuss the most significant works and findings on this topic. This work points towards open issues, which we belive the community needs to address. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.