Which activation works best for my use case (ReLU vs. sigmoid vs. tanh)?

?the activation function breathes non-linearity into networks.
Geoffrey Hinton

How It Works:

Benchmark different functions: ReLU for deep, sparse gradients; sigmoid/tanh for shallow nets or where output range matters; softmax for multi-class probabilities.

Key Benefits:

  • Optimized performance: Tailored speed and accuracy trade-offs.
  • Stable training: Minimizes vanishing or exploding gradients.
  • Predictable behavior: Known convergence properties.

Real-World Use Cases:

  • NLP models: Tanh in small RNNs for sentiment analysis.
  • Time series: Leaky ReLU in forecasting networks to handle negative values.

FAQs

How to test multiple activations?
Can switching boost accuracy late in training?