Induction of descriptive fuzzy classifiers with the Logitboost algorithm

Recently, Adaboost has been compared to greedy backfitting of extended additive models in logistic regression problems, or “Logitboost". The Adaboost algorithm has been applied to learn fuzzy rules in classification problems, and other backfitting algorithms to learn fuzzy rules in modeling problems but, up to our knowledge, there are not previous works that extend the Logitboost algorithm to learn fuzzy rules in classification problems. In this work, Logitboost is applied to learn fuzzy rules in classification problems, and its results are compared with that of Adaboost and other fuzzy rule learning algorithms. Contradicting the expected results, it is shown that the basic extension of the backfitting algorithm to learn classification rules may produce worse results thanAdaboost does. We suggest that this is caused by the stricter requirements that Logitboost demands to the weak learners, which are not fulfilled by fuzzy rules. Finally, it is proposed a prefitting based modification of the Logitboost algorithm that avoids this problem.