Is the Frequency Principle always valid?
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Abstract (arXiv)
We investigate the learning dynamics of shallow ReLU neural networks on the unit sphere (S2subsetℝ3) in polar coordinates ((τ,φ)), considering both fixed and trainable neuron directions (wi). For fixed weights, spherical harmonic expansions reveal an intrinsic low-frequency preference with coefficients decaying as (O(ℓ5/2/2ℓ)), typically leading to the Frequency Principle (FP) of lower-frequency-first learning. However, this principle can be violated under specific initial conditions or error distributions. With trainable weights, an additional rotation term in the harmonic evolution equations preserves exponential decay with decay order (O(ℓ7/2/2ℓ)) factor, also leading to the FP of lower-frequency-first learning. But like fixed weights case, the principle can be violated under specific initial conditions or error distributions. Our numerical results demonstrate that trainable directions increase learning complexity and can either maintain a low-frequency advantage or enable faster high-frequency emergence. This analysis suggests the FP should be viewed as a tendency rather than a rule on curved domains like (S2), providing insights into how direction updates and harmonic expansions shape frequency-dependent learning.
Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 16 of its 28 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 24 Aug 2025.
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16 of 28 references.
References · 16
- 2020Fourier Features Let Networks Learn High Frequency Functions in Low Dimensional Domainscited by 2,200
- 2018On the Spectral Bias of Neural Networkscited by 1,341
- 2019Frequency Principle: Fourier Analysis Sheds Light on Deep Neural Networkscited by 368
- 2014Breaking the Curse of Dimensionality with Convex Neural Networkscited by 331
- 2018Training behavior of deep neural network in frequency domaincited by 174
- 2017Natural Language Processing: State of The Art, Current Trends and Challengescited by 114
- 2019Deep Learning vs. Traditional Computer Visioncited by 94
- 2020Multi-scale Deep Neural Network (MscaleDNN) for Solving Poisson-Boltzmann Equation in Complex Domainscited by 79
- 2022Overview frequency principle/spectral bias in deep learningcited by 69
- 2019Machine Learning from a Continuous Viewpointcited by 50
- 2020A Survey of Deep Learning Techniques for Neural Machine Translationcited by 50
- 2019Theory of the Frequency Principle for General Deep Neural Networkscited by 46
4 more
- 2022On the Activation Function Dependence of the Spectral Bias of Neural Networkscited by 28
- 2019Multi-scale Deep Neural Networks for Solving High Dimensional PDEscited by 25
- 2022The Spectral Bias of Polynomial Neural Networkscited by 19
- 2020Plateau Phenomenon in Gradient Descent Training of ReLU networks: Explanation, Quantification and Avoidancecited by 11
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