Schema Theory: Mutation versus Recombination

Abstract

The previous chapters have fully outlined schema theories for recombination and for mutation. Two aspects of these operators were investigated — the disruptive aspect and the constructive aspect. Disruption refers to the likelihood that a kth-order hyperplane H _k will not survive either recombination or mutation. Construction refers to the likelihood that a kth-order hyperplane will be created, given that one parent is a member of a lower-order hyperplane H _m , and that the other parent is a member of another lower-order hyperplane H _n . In order to provide for a fair comparison of mutation and recombination, care was taken to ensure that the mathematical framework was always the same for both operators (e.g., both operators are taken to be two-parent operators that produce two children). The framework is not repeated here (see Chaps. 3–7 for full details).