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I am wondering about the differences. Based on my understanding, MLP is one kind of neural networks, where the activation function is sigmoid, and error term is cross-entropy(logistics) error. Looking for help, thanks!

DQ_happy
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    i'm not 100% sure but the definition of MLP seems a bit vague, I've seen those two terms being used interchangeably, personally I always use NN to avoid ambiguity. – dontloo Apr 24 '16 at 04:21

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You are right, MLP is one kind of neural network.

There are several kinds of NN, you can have a NN based on Radial Basis Function with a Soft gating strategy, for example. You can use a committee machine strategy to form a NN...

tupan
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  • Thanks! And I am wondering if MLP is the NN whose activation function is sigmoid, and error term is cross-entropy(logistics) error? – DQ_happy Apr 24 '16 at 00:11
  • Yes, you need to use the sigmoid as activation functions, because there is no way to use gradient descendent in the hidden layers if you use a linear function as the activation function. You need to use derivations and once you use it in a linear function the result will always be 0... I didn't understand your cross-entropy question – tupan Apr 24 '16 at 14:59
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MLP is fully connected feed-forward network. In particular CNN which is partially connected, RNN which has feedback loop are not MLPs.

Fakrudeen
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Multi-Layer Perceptron is a model of neural networks (NN). There are several other models including recurrent NN and radial basis networks. For an introduction to different models and to get a sense of how they are different, check this link out.

Shoresh
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    Please [explain what the link says and quote](https://stats.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer) the most relevant parts. Where possible, try to give a proper reference -- or at least enough information that the information could be found again if the link moved. – Glen_b Apr 24 '17 at 04:15
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The main difference is that MLP is one way. Thus, it's a feedforward network without any loop. Whereas, Neural networks such as DNN can contain loops. See more here

Joy
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