Search-based evolutionary operators for extensionally-defined search spaces: Applications to image search

This paper explores the idea of applying evolutionary algorithms to those search spaces that are defined extensionally, i.e. by listing every item in the space. When these spaces are with a function that returns similar elements given a key element, analogies of mutation and crossover can be defined. This idea is discussed in general, and specific examples are given where the search is for images, in particular where image search is carried out using an interactive genetic algorithm.