Dropout Regularization is a powerful technique used to prevent overfitting in neural networks. During training, it randomly sets a fraction of the neurons to zero at each iteration, effectively "dropping out" these neurons from the network. This process encourages the network to learn more robust features that are useful across different subsets of neurons, thus improving generalization performance. The main idea behind dropout is that it forces the model to not rely on any specific set of neurons, which helps prevent co-adaptation where neurons learn to work together excessively.
Mathematically, if the original output of a neuron is , the output after applying dropout can be expressed as:
where is a random variable that equals 1 with probability (the neuron is kept) and 0 with probability (the neuron is dropped). During inference, dropout is turned off, and the outputs of all neurons are scaled by the factor to maintain the overall output level. This technique not only helps improve model robustness but also significantly reduces the risk of overfitting, leading to better performance on unseen data.
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