English

Recent Trends in the Use of Statistical Tests for Comparing Swarm and Evolutionary Computing Algorithms: Practical Guidelines and a Critical Review

Neural and Evolutionary Computing 2020-02-26 v1 Methodology

Abstract

A key aspect of the design of evolutionary and swarm intelligence algorithms is studying their performance. Statistical comparisons are also a crucial part which allows for reliable conclusions to be drawn. In the present paper we gather and examine the approaches taken from different perspectives to summarise the assumptions made by these statistical tests, the conclusions reached and the steps followed to perform them correctly. In this paper, we conduct a survey on the current trends of the proposals of statistical analyses for the comparison of algorithms of computational intelligence and include a description of the statistical background of these tests. We illustrate the use of the most common tests in the context of the Competition on single-objective real parameter optimisation of the IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC) 2017 and describe the main advantages and drawbacks of the use of each kind of test and put forward some recommendations concerning their use.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2002.09227,
  title  = {Recent Trends in the Use of Statistical Tests for Comparing Swarm and Evolutionary Computing Algorithms: Practical Guidelines and a Critical Review},
  author = {J. Carrasco and S. García and M. M. Rueda and S. Das and F. Herrera},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2002.09227},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

52 pages, 10 figures, 19 tables

R2 v1 2026-06-23T13:49:15.499Z