Theoretical analysis of the batch variant of the self-organizing feature map algorithm for 1-d networks mapping a continuous 1-d input space

Abstract

This work investigates the batch variant of Kohonen's self-organizing feature map (SOFM) algorithm both analytically and with simulations. In this algorithm, the winning neurons as well as the weight updates are computed in batch mode (epoch mode). It is shown that for 1-D maps and 1-D continuous input and weight spaces the strictly increasing or decreasing weight configurations form absorbing classes provided certain conditions on the parameters are satisfied. Ordering of the maps, convergence in distribution and asymptotic convergence are also proved analytically. Finally, simulations and comparisons with the original Kohonen algorithm on 1-D and 2-D maps are provided and are found to be in complete agreement with the theoretical results.

Keywords:

• Self-organizing feature maps
• Markov processes