Volume 5 (2009)
Article 10 pp. 191-216
Distribution-Free Testing Lower Bound for Basic Boolean Functions
by Dana Glasner and Rocco A. Servedio
Received: September 18, 2008
Published: October 17, 2009
Keywords: property testing, distribution-free testing, decision list, conjunction, linear threshold function
ACM Classification: F.2.2, G.3
AMS Classification: 68Q99, 69W20
Abstract:
[Plain Text Version]
In the distribution-free property testing model, the distance
between functions is measured with respect to an arbitrary and
unknown probability distribution D over
the input domain. We
consider distribution-free testing of several basic Boolean function
classes over {0,1}n, namely monotone
conjunctions, general conjunctions, decision lists, and linear threshold
functions. We prove that for each of these function classes,
Ω((n / log n)1/5)
oracle calls are required for any
distribution-free testing algorithm. Since each of these function
classes is known to be distribution-free properly learnable (and hence
testable) using Θ(n) oracle calls, our
lower bounds are polynomially related to the best possible.