Learning the k in k-means

Clustering algorithms are useful tools for data mining, compression, probability density es- timation, and many other important tasks. However, most clustering algorithms require the user to specify the number of clusters (called k), and it is not always clear what is the best value for k. Figure 1 shows examples where k has been improperly chosen. Choosing k is often an ad hoc decision based on prior knowledge, assumptions, and practical experience. Choosing k is made more difficult when the data has many dimensions, even when clusters are well-separated. Center-based clustering algorithms (in particular k-means and Gaussian expectation- maximization) usually assume that each cluster adheres to a unimodal distribution, such as Gaussian. With these methods, only one center should be used to model each subset of data that follows a unimodal distribution. If multiple centers are used to describe data drawn from one mode, the centers are a needlessly complex description of the data, and in fact the multiple centers capture the truth about the subset less well than one center. In this paper we present a simple algorithm called G-means that discovers an appropriate k using a statistical test for deciding whether to split a k-means center into two centers.