Phenotype Plasticity in Genetic Programming: A Comparison of Darwinian and Lamarckian Inheritance Schemes

Abstract We consider a form of phenotype plasticity in Genetic Programming (GP). This takes the form of a set of real-valued numerical parameters associated with each individual, an optimisation (or learning) algorithm for adapting their values, and an inheritance strategy for propagating learned parameter values to o spring. We show that plastic GP has signi cant bene ts including faster evolution and adaptation in changing environments compared with non-plastic GP. The paper also considers the di erences between Darwinian and Lamarckian inheritance schemes and shows that the former is superior in dynamic environments.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1999
• Where: EUROGP
• Authors: Anna Esparcia-Alcázar, Ken Sharman
• Keywords: EUROGP 1999, Lamarckian Inheritance Schemes, Optimization, Plastic Gp, Real-valued Numerical Parameters