Explicit Forgetting Algorithms for Memory Based Learning
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Abstract
Memory-based learning algorithms lack a mechanism for tracking time-varying associative mappings. To widen their applicability, they must incorporate explicit forgetting algorithms to selectively delete observations. We describe Time-Weighted, Locally-Weighted and Performance-Error Weighted forgetting algorithms. These were evaluated with a Nearest-Neighbor Learner in a simple classification task. Locally-Weighted Forgetting outperformed Time-Weighted Forgetting under time-varying sampling distributions and mappings, and did equally well when only the mapping varied. Performance-Error forgetting tracked about as well as the other algorithms, but was superior since it permitted the Nearest-Neighbor learner to approach the Bayes' misclassification rate when the input-output mapping became stationary.