The capability of neural network to differentiate patterns make the backpropagation neural network is chosen to classify unknown face images. In the thesis, the proposed system implemented the binary sigmoid function in training phase. The binary sigmoid has a normalized range within 0 to 1 which can be described as;
(3.28)where c controls the firing angle of the sigmoid.
Figure 3.8: The sigmoid activation function with different values of c
From figure 3.8 when c is large, the sigmoid becomes like a threshold function and when c is small, the sigmoid becomes more like a straight line (linear). If value of c is large, the learning faster but a lot of information is lost. However, more information is gain although the speed very slow with small amount of c. Because of this function is differentiable, it enables the backpropagation algorithm to adapt the lower layer of weights in a multilayer neural network [Marzuki Khalid, 2005]. This backpropagation algorithm is explained in the following paragraph.
