Deep Learning: Batch Normalization

btd
2 min readNov 13, 2023

Batch Normalization (BN) is a technique in deep learning that normalizes the inputs of a neural network layer by adjusting and scaling them. It was introduced to address issues related to internal covariate shift and has become a standard component in many modern neural network architectures. Here’s an in-depth look at Batch Normalization:

1. Internal Covariate Shift:

Definition:

  • Internal covariate shift refers to the change in the distribution of the input to a neural network layer during training.

Issue:

  • The shift in input distributions can slow down the training process as each layer has to continuously adapt to the changing inputs.

2. Batch Normalization Concept:

Normalization:

  • Batch Normalization normalizes the inputs of a layer by subtracting the mean and dividing by the standard deviation.

Scale and Shift:

  • The normalized values are then scaled and shifted using learnable parameters to allow the network to adapt during training.

3. Batch Normalization Procedure:

For a Mini-Batch:

  • Given a mini-batch of activations, calculate the mean and standard deviation for each feature.
  • Normalize the features using the mean and…

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