BackPropagation Neuron Network Approach - Design

I am trying to make a digit recognition program. I shall feed a white/black image of a digit and my output layer will fire the corresponding digit (one neuron shall fire, out of the 0 -> 9 neurons in the Output Layer). I finished implementing a Two-dimensional BackPropagation Neuron Network. My topology sizes are [5][3] -> [3][3] -> 1[10]. So it's One 2-D Input Layer, One 2-D Hidden Layer and One 1-D Output Layer. However I am getting weird and wrong results (Average Error and Output Values).

Debugging at this stage is kind of time consuming. Therefore, I would love to hear if this is the correct design so I continue debugging. Here are the flow steps of my implementation:

• Build the Network: One Bias on each Layer except on the Output Layer (No Bias). A Bias's output value is always = 1.0, however its Connections Weights get updated on each pass like all other neurons in the network. All Weights range 0.000 -> 1.000 (no negatives)

• Get Input data (0 | OR | 1) and set nth value as the nth Neuron Output Value in the input layer.

• Feed Forward: On each Neuron 'n' in every Layer (except the Input Layer):

  • Get result of SUM (Output Value * Connection Weight) of connected Neurons from previous layer towards this nth Neuron.
  • Get TanHyperbolic - Transfer Function - of this SUM as Results
  • Set Results as the Output Value of this nth Neuron

• Get Results: Take Output Values of Neurons in the Output Layer

• BackPropagation:

  • Calculate Network Error: on the Output Layer, get SUM Neurons' (Target Values - Output Values)^2. Divide this SUM by the size of the Output Layer. Get its SquareRoot as Result. Compute Average Error = (OldAverageError * SmoothingFactor * Result) / (SmoothingFactor + 1.00)
  • Calculate Output Layer Gradients: for each Output Neuron 'n', nth Gradient = (nth Target Value - nth Output Value) * nth Output Value TanHyperbolic Derivative
  • Calculate Hidden Layer Gradients: for each Neuron 'n', get SUM (TanHyperbolic Derivative of a weight going from this nth Neuron * Gradient of the destination Neuron) as Results. Assign (Results * this nth Output Value) as the Gradient.
  • Update all Weights: Starting from the hidden Layer and back to the Input Layer, for nth Neuron: Compute NewDeltaWeight = (NetLearningRate * nth Output Value * nth Gradient + Momentum * OldDeltaWeight). Then assign New Weight as (OldWeight + NewDeltaWeight)
• Repeat process.

Here is my attempt for digit number seven. The outputs are Neuron # zero and Neuron # 6. Neuron six should be carrying 1 and Neuron # zero should be carrying 0. In my results, all Neuron other than six are carrying the same value (# zero is a sample).

Sorry for the long post. If you know this then you probably know how cool it is and how large it is to be in a single post. Thank you in advance

Softmax with log-loss is typically used for multiclass output layer activation function. You have multiclass/multinomial: with the 10 possible digits comprising the 10 classes.

So you can try changing your output layer activation function to softmax

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softmax_function

Artificial neural networks

In neural network simulations, the softmax function is often implemented at the final layer of a network used for classification. Such networks are then trained under a log loss (or cross-entropy) regime, giving a non-linear variant of multinomial logistic regression.

Let us know what effect that has. –