# Is a Multilayer Perceptron a recursive function?

I read somewhere that a Multilayer Perceptron is a recursive function in its forward propagation phase. I am not sure, what is the recursive part? For me, I would see a MLP as a chained function. So, it would nice anyone could relate a MLP to a recursive function.

• Probably wrong... Although RNN maybe perceived as recursive to some....And NN maybe designed as a recursive function but I am not sure of anyone does that – DuttaA Aug 15 '18 at 16:05
• Are you sure it was only talking about the forward pass? The full training process could be modeled as a recursive process (although it usually isn't), but the forward pass by itself, not so much. – Ray Aug 15 '18 at 21:08
• Every iterative computing task can be realized in a recursive function (preferably tail recursive to automatic memory allocation) or using a loop, with appropriate iteration technique. That is why functional programning languages and collections libraries have iterators. It was found that the idea of tail recursion was only comprehensible to a small subset of those that program, so LISPers use recursion more frequently and with greater efficiency than Java programmers, who tend to use the Iterator interface or its sub interfaces. – FauChristian Aug 15 '18 at 21:24
• That applies to forward signal propagation during training or in field use, back propagation of correction during training, functions that perform training epochs, or any small function that deals with lists from within these higher calls. ~~ Iterating through horizontal pixel rows could be done recursively (although it would be obscure) and traversing a tree could be done with iteration (although recursion is much more transparent an approach). – FauChristian Aug 15 '18 at 21:26

$$o_n = f(o_{n-1})$$
Where $o_n$ is the output of layer $n$.