Adding noise to training data

[John.Hampshire@SPEECH2.CS.CMU.EDU]

Actually, I made my original post on this topic to connectionists
by accident...  Oh well.  Tom English is right --- Parzen windows
do (in effect) estimate classification boundaries by convolving
the noise PDF with the training sample PDF (a bunch of deltas...).
Again, the goodness of the result depends on the PDF of the noise
and its covariance matrix.  The difference between Parzen windows
and adding noise to data which is then used to train a (say)
connectionist classifier is that both techniques formulate a
new estimated PDF of the training data in the basis of the additive
noise, but the connectionist model THEN goes on to try to model
this new PDF in its connections and ITS set of basis functions.
This is what seems desperate to me, and I didn't mean to impugn
Parzen windows.  I expected someone to catch me on that!	-John