Mutual learning with many linear perceptrons: On-line learning theory

Abstract

We propose a new mutual learning using many weak learner (or student) which converges into the identical state of Bagging that is kind of ensemble learning, within the framework of on-line learning, and have analyzed its asymptotic property through the statistical mechanics method. Mutual learning involving more than three students is essential compares to two student case from a viewpoint of variety of selection of a student acting as teacher. The proposed model consists of two learning steps: many students independently learn from a teacher, and then the students learn from others through the mutual learning. In mutual learning, students learn from other students and the generalization error is improved even if the teacher has not taken part in the mutual learning. We demonstrate that the learning style of selecting a student to act as teacher randomly is superior to that of cyclic order by using principle component analysis. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.