Can Single Solution Optimisation Methods Be Structurally Biased?

IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), pp. 1–9

Abstract

This paper investigates whether optimisation methods with the population made up of one solution can suffer from structural bias just like their multisolution variants. Following recent results highlighting the importance of choice of strategy for handling solutions generated outside the domain, a selection of single solution methods are considered in conjunction with several such strategies. Obtained results are tested for the presence of structural bias by means of a traditional approach from literature and a newly proposed here statistical approach. These two tests are demonstrated to be not fully consistent. All tested methods are found to be structurally biased with at least one of the tested strategies. Confirming results for multisolution methods, it is such strategy that is shown to control the emergence of structural bias in single solution methods. Some of the tested methods exhibit a kind of structural bias that has not been observed before.

Authors 4

1. Anna V. Kononova Aachen

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   LIACS, Leiden University, The Netherlands

2. Fabio Caraffini

   De Montfort University

   Affiliation as printed

   Institute of Artificial Intelligence De Montfort University, Leicester, UK

3. Hao Wang

   Sorbonne Université · LIP6

   Affiliation as printed

   LIP6, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France

4. Thomas Bäck Aachen

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   LIACS, Leiden University, The Netherlands