Glossary

What is LSTM / Long Short-Term Memory

LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory) is a special kind of recurrent neural network (RNN) designed to process and predict sequences of data. Introduced by Hochreiter and Schmidhuber in 1997, it addresses the vanishing and exploding gradient problems typically encountered in traditional RNNs when dealing with long sequences. The structure of LSTM allows it to retain information over long time intervals, making it suitable for tasks involving time series, natural language processing, and speech recognition.


The core of LSTM lies in its unique cell structure, which includes an input gate, a forget gate, and an output gate. These gating mechanisms help the LSTM decide when to retain, update, or discard information. This operational mechanism allows LSTMs to excel in tasks that require long-term memory, such as text generation and machine translation.


In practical applications, LSTM has been widely used in various fields, such as financial data forecasting, climate modeling, speech recognition, and video analysis. However, its complex structure and higher computational demands are significant drawbacks.


Looking ahead, as deep learning technologies continue to evolve, LSTM may be combined with other emerging technologies, such as Transformer models, to further improve processing efficiency and effectiveness. Therefore, understanding the operational mechanics of LSTM and its applications in modern deep learning is crucial.