Dropout is a regularization technique that is used to improve the generalizing power of a network and prevent it from overfitting. Generally, a dropout value of 0.2 to 0.5 is used, with 0.2 being a good starting point. In general, we have to select multiple values and check the performance of the model.

The likelihood of a dropout that has a value that is too low has a negligible impact. However, if the value is too high for the network, then the network under-learns the features during model training. If dropout is used on a larger and wider network, then you are likely to get better performance, giving the model a greater opportunity to learn independent representations.

An example of dropout can be seen as follows, showing how we are going to drop a few of the neurons from the network:

In the next section, we will learn about activation functions as hyperparameters.