Hi, I'm looking into neural networks but am not sure what type I should be using for my problem. I have 10 images, and the user clicks on them in a particular order (e.g. 1, 8, 3, 10, 5....). They then do it again, but slightly different. After a few iterations, I want the program to choose what order they're most likely to choose. Assuming the number of images increases to 10000, I want to extrapolate the pattern to have the NN decide what order the user would select within the 10000. Also assume the images have tags that show similarities and differences between them which is used to monitor the pattern of image selection. What type of NN would be best in this situation? Thank you

Quote: Original post by phi
I'm looking into neural networks but am not sure what type I should be using for my problem.

Then you probably shouldn't be using neural networks. ;)

Quote: Assuming the number of images increases to 10000, I want to extrapolate the pattern to have the NN decide what order the user would select within the 10000.

If all you're interested in is this order, then surely taking the average ranking for each image over all trials will give you what you ask for. (eg. Picture 7 appears at rank 4.5 out of 10.) However, the values will tend towards the central value and themselves will only really be useful as ordinal data.

However, if you wanted to find the most likely successor image for each image, ie. predicting which comes next at each step, that's more practical. But again it doesn't require neural networks, and is probably more suited to something like Markov chains I think. Not to mention that you'd need a lot of training data or quite distinct patterns before you could get useful results out of a 10,000 element choice.

Do you absolutely need to use neural networks for this? Or is it more important that you get the task done?

Quote: Also assume the images have tags that show similarities and differences between them which is used to monitor the pattern of image selection. What type of NN would be best in this situation?

This implies that what is important about the images is this set of tags. If that is true, it is reasonable to expect that your algorithm would, given an image, guess what sort of tags it would expect from the next image you choose. The neural network, if you used such a thing, would presumably take a set of tags as input and a set of tags as output. I get the feeling that this wouldn't help you much, since I assume there is some method to the user's choice and that it's probably predictable anyway.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. Rereading my original question made me realise some ambiguity. Hopefully, I can clear this up lol.
The order of the image is irrelevant, but the tags are important. So the tags I have for the images are "cars, actors, films, music" (arbitrary example). Each image would fall into such a category. Now, I want to see what images the user tends to click on. They may click on 'cars' and 'music' often, but 'actors' less so. Therefore, when more images are added, I want the AI to predict which image it should display based on previous records of what the user has been doing and in what particular order. I'd rather use Neural Networks for learning purposes. In an ideal world, would you say the Markov Chain would be better for such a task? What if there were more complicated factors inputted on top of the image types chosen such as the user's mood etc... (human inputted data)?

Thanks

edit: I'm worried that averaging would lose the order of images shown. It'll only give the number of occurrences as opposed to when. (I may be wrong)

NNs aren't really spectacular at doing time-based pattern recognition things either, however. Now, this is order-based which is a little easier to quantify than all out time-based, but still. How much of a sequence do you want to track? 5? 10? 50? You can add the "click sequence number" as an input. Or even a "click sequence range" such as 1-5, 6-10, 11-15. It depends on how granular you want to get. *shrug*

I'm still not convinced this is the best route.

Assuming I didn't have to use neural networks, what would you recommend? Effectively, the system is learning that the user likes certain types of images and therefore will guess what they will like in the future. I've been looking at the Markov method as it's probability based. This does look like a convincing method (i.e. 10000 images all starting with 0.0001 chance of being selected). As the user selected more and more of 'cars' the probability for that increases and the other section decreases.
How are NNs used in forecasting financial situations? I assumed they take previous information and extrapolate?

If you want to predict the probability of a certain picture being chosen given the previous N selected pictures, I'd recommend using Markov Chains. They seem particularly suited to this task, especially considering how the data is being gathered.

Concur on the Markov Chains. But even just simple weighting, as mentioned previously, would do some serious damage to the problem. Especially if you can get fancy with decay times on the weights or something. But looking into ol' Markov would do you some good.

off-topic @ Stephen R: Dude... your user rating is 1337! That's so cool!

Quote: Original post by InnocuousFox
off-topic @ Stephen R: Dude... your user rating is 1337! That's so cool!

also-off-topic: I think I may have stopped posting here for so long for fear of someone rating me again [smile]

Quote: also-off-topic: I think I may have stopped posting here for so long for fear of someone rating me again

Bwahahaha.

Quote: (Phi)
How are NNs used in forecasting financial situations? I assumed they take previous information and extrapolate?

Meh, there's mathematical models that are useful for forecasting. My mind wouldn't jump to NNs for such forecasting.

Quote: Original post by phi
How are NNs used in forecasting financial situations? I assumed they take previous information and extrapolate?

I believe they have to have discrete periods before the present moment. e.g. 1 day, 2 days, 5 days, 10 days, 30 days, etc.
Not sure.