The distribution of a class of objects, such as images depicting a specific topic, can be studied by observing the best-matching
units (BMUs) of the objects’ feature vectors on a Self-Organizing Map (SOM). When the BMU “hits” on the map are summed up,
the class distribution may be seen as a two-dimensional histogram or discrete probability density. Due to the SOM’s topology
preserving property, one is motivated to smooth the value field and spread out the values spatially to neighboring units,
from where one may expect to find further similar objects. In this paper we study the impact of using more map units than
just the single BMU of each feature vector in modeling the class distribution. We demonstrate that by varying the number of
units selected in this way and varying the width of the spatial convolution one can find an optimal combination which maximizes
the class detection performance.
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013)
under grant agreement n° 216529, Personal Information Navigator Adapting Through Viewing, PinView. Mats Sjöberg has been supported by a grant from
the Nokia Foundation.