Fuzzy multi-layer perceptron, inferencing and rule generation.

A connectionist expert system model, based on a fuzzy version of the multilayer perceptron developed by the authors, is proposed. It infers the output class membership value(s) of an input pattern and also generates a measure of certainty expressing confidence in the decision. The model is capable of querying the user for the more important input feature information, if and when required, in case of partial inputs. Justification for an inferred decision may be produced in rule form, when so desired by the user. The magnitudes of the connection weights of the trained neural network are utilized in every stage of the proposed inferencing procedure. The antecedent and consequent parts of the justificatory rules are provided in natural forms. The effectiveness of the algorithm is tested on the speech recognition problem, on some medical data and on artificially generated intractable (linearly nonseparable) pattern classes.