iFuzz-Meta: An Interpretable Fuzzy Learning Framework Bridging Top-Down and Bottom-Up Knowledge Integration

Abstract

Interpretable representation learning remains a key challenge in modern neural computation, particularly when models are expected not only to perform but also to explain their reasoning. This paper introduces iFuzz-Meta, an interpretable fuzzy rule-based learning framework that preserves human-understandable reasoning structures within modern neural architectures. Each fuzzy rule corresponds to a semantic and spatial prototype defined in the original feature space, enabling transparent inference and direct interpretability. Meta-learning is employed as an analytical paradigm to examine how these interpretable rules reorganize across tasks and domains, providing a principled means to link algorithmic adaptation with cognitive representation. A knowledge-guided regularization mechanism further enables a top-down-bottom-up integration, in which theoretical priors act as soft inductive biases while data-driven learning refines and extends them. This dual process ensures that adaptation proceeds along semantically and physiologically meaningful trajectories, rather than arbitrary parameter shifts. Evaluations demonstrate that iFuzz-Meta achieves interpretable reasoning and stable cross-domain generalization, establishing a potential general pathway toward explainable and knowledge-aware fuzzy systems.