Deep Self-Organizing Map of Convolutional Layers for Clustering and Visualizing Image Data

The self-organizing convolutional map (SOCOM) hybridizes convolutional neural networks, self-organizing maps, and gradient backpropagation optimization into a novel integrated unsupervised deep learning model. SOCOM structurally combines, architecturally stacks, and algorithmically fuses its deep/unsupervised learning components. The higher-level representations produced by its underlying convolutional deep architecture are embedded in its topologically ordered neural map output. The ensuing unsupervised clustering and visualization operations reflect the model’s degree of synergy between its building blocks and synopsize its range of applications. Clustering results are reported on the STL-10 benchmark dataset coupled with the devised neural map visualizations. The series of conducted experiments utilize a deep VGG-based SOCOM model.