Training Recurrent Neural Network through Moment Matching for NLP Applications

Recurrent neural network (RNN) is conventionally trained in the supervised mode but used in the free-running mode for inferences on testing samples. The supervised mode takes ground truth token values as RNN inputs but the free-running mode can only use self-predicted token values as surrogating inputs. Such inconsistency inevitably results in poor generalizations of RNN on out-of-sample data. We propose a moment matching (MM) training strategy to alleviate such inconsistency by simultaneously taking these two distinct modes and their corresponding dynamics into consideration. Our MM-RNN shows significant performance improvements over existing approaches when tested on practical NLP applications including logic form generation and image captioning.