Investigating Hyperparameter Optimization and Transferability for ES-HyperNEAT: A TPE Approach — Paper

Abstract

-cross Abstract: Neuroevolution of Augmenting Topologies (NEAT) and its advanced version, Evolvable-Substrate HyperNEAT (ES-HyperNEAT), have shown great potential in developing neural networks. However, their effectiveness heavily depends on the selection of hyperparameters. This study investigates the optimization of ES-HyperNEAT hyperparameters using the Tree-structured Parzen Estimator (TPE) on the MNIST classification task, exploring a search space of over 3 billion potential combinations. TPE effectively navigates this vast space, significantly outperforming random search in terms of mean, median, and best accuracy. During the validation process, the best hyperparameter configuration found by TPE achieves an accuracy of 29.00% on MNIST, surpassing previous studies while using a smaller population size and fewer generations. The transferability of the optimized hyperparameters is explored in logic operations and Fashion-MNIST tasks, revealing successful transfer to the more complex Fashion-MNIST problem but limited to simpler logic operations. This study emphasizes a method to unlock the full potential of neuroevolutionary algorithms and provides insights into the hyperparameters' transferability across tasks of varying complexity.

Authors 4

Romain Claret, Michael O'Neill, Paul Cotofrei, Kilian Stoffel

Specification

Official page: arxiv.org/abs/2609.00449
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 2 h agohigh
Arxiv announce type: replace
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 2 h agohigh
arXiv id: 2609.00449
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 2 h agohigh
Categories: cs.NE, cs.AI
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 2 h agohigh
DOI: 10.1145/3638530.3664144
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 2 h agohigh
PDF: arxiv.org/pdf/2609.00449
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 2 h agohigh
Primary category: cs.NE
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 2 h agohigh
Published: 11 Sept 2026
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 2 h agohigh

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Attributed facts

10

Source tiers

T110

Freshest observation

2 h ago

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None

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Authors: Romain Claret, Michael O'Neill, Paul Cotofrei

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Claim history · Abstract

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Abstractabstract1

Claim history for Abstract
Value	Valid from → to	Status	Source	Confidence	Extractor
-cross Abstract: Neuroevolution of Augmenting Topologies (NEAT) and its advanced version, Evolvable-Substrate HyperNEAT (ES-HyperNEAT), have shown great potential in developing neural networks. However, their effectiveness heavily depends on the selection of hyperparameters. This study investigates the optimization of ES-HyperNEAT hyperparameters using the Tree-structured Parzen Estimator (TPE) on the MNIST classification task, exploring a search space of over 3 billion potential combinations. TPE effectively navigates this vast space, significantly outperforming random search in terms of mean, median, and best accuracy. During the validation process, the best hyperparameter configuration found by TPE achieves an accuracy of 29.00% on MNIST, surpassing previous studies while using a smaller population size and fewer generations. The transferability of the optimized hyperparameters is explored in logic operations and Fashion-MNIST tasks, revealing successful transfer to the more complex Fashion-MNIST problem but limited to simpler logic operations. This study emphasizes a method to unlock the full potential of neuroevolutionary algorithms and provides insights into the hyperparameters' transferability across tasks of varying complexity.	11 Sept 2026 21:03 UTC → current	current	arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1	high	deterministic

Claims are temporal and append-only: a new observation closes the previous claim (valid_to) instead of overwriting it. Conflicting claims from different sources are kept side by side and flagged — never averaged. Methodology →

11 Sept 2026
New paperPaperInvestigating Hyperparameter Optimization and Transferability for ES-HyperNEAT: A TPE Approach
New paper: Investigating Hyperparameter Optimization and Transferability for ES-HyperNEAT: A TPE Approach
arxiv
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Source documents
Source	Document	Type	Tier	Last observed	Snapshots
arXiv (Atom API + RSS)	rss.arxiv.org/rss/cs.AI	feed	T1· Official	2 h ago	1

Tier 1 = official/primary, 2 = quality secondary, 3 = community, 4 = unverified. Every snapshot is archived; see all sources and the methodology.