Unsupervised Learning: Foundations of Neural Computation

The selected papers include some of the most influential titles of late, for example, "What Is the Goal of Sensory Coding" by David Field and "An Information-Maximization Approach to Blind Separation and Blind Deconvolution" by Anthony Bell and Terrence Sejnowski. The edited volume provides a sample of important works on unsupervised learning, which cut across the fields of AI, neuroscience, and psychology. The central issue in unsupervised learning concerns its goal. In supervised learning, a desired output signal is provided to the learner together with an input signal, and the system adjusts parameters so that its response in the future will be closer to the desired signal. Although supervised learning has been dominant in machine learning, much of our intelligence, in particular, perception, is acquired without a teacher.