Comparing Mechanisms for Evolving Evolvability - Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon University

Comparing Mechanisms for Evolving Evolvability

Matthew Glickman and Katia Sycara
Workshop Paper, GECCO '99 Workshop, pp. 38 - 41, July, 1999

Abstract

In evolutionary search, the term evolvability as defined in [Altenberg 94] refers to ``the ability of a population to produce variants fitter than any yet existing''. In this paper, we examine a few existing mechanisms which provide the potential for the evolvability of a population to itself evolve. One key property that we identify among such mechanisms is a many-to-one genotype-to-phenotype mapping, which permits variations in evolvability to occur independent of fitness. Another is the propensity for individuals to become increasingly conservative in parent-offspring transmission as they become more fit, a phenomenon which becomes stronger as selection pressure becomes weaker.

BibTeX

@workshop{Glickman-1999-14955,
author = {Matthew Glickman and Katia Sycara},
title = {Comparing Mechanisms for Evolving Evolvability},
booktitle = {Proceedings of GECCO '99 Workshop},
year = {1999},
month = {July},
pages = {38 - 41},
keywords = {genetic algorithms, neural networks},
}