Exponential Dissimilarity-Dispersion Family for Domain-Specific Representation Learning

Area of Science:

• Machine Learning
• Computer Vision
• Generative Models

Background:

• Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) are foundational for representation learning and generative modeling.
• Conventional VAEs with Gaussian distributions struggle with high-dimensional data due to limited model families.
• Performance degradation in VAEs for high-dimensional data necessitates novel distribution approaches.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a new domain-specific representation learning method called the exponential dissimilarity-dispersion family (EDDF).
• To address the performance limitations of conventional VAEs in high-dimensional generative modeling.
• To propose an effective ELBO optimization method for VAEs utilizing the EDDF.

Main Methods:

• Developed the exponential dissimilarity-dispersion family (EDDF), incorporating a dissimilarity function and a global dispersion parameter.
• Integrated EDDF into VAE decoders, using dissimilarity functions for evidence lower bound (ELBO) reconstruction loss.
• Proposed an ELBO optimization technique approximating the stochastic gradient of the normalizing constant via log-expected dissimilarity.

Main Results:

• Empirical evaluations demonstrated the effectiveness of the EDDF model family in generative tasks.
• The proposed method significantly enhances high-dimensional data modeling capabilities within VAEs.
• The EDDF framework shows improved generative performance compared to conventional VAE approaches.

Conclusions:

• The EDDF offers a novel and effective distribution family for VAEs, particularly for high-dimensional data.
• This approach enhances generative modeling by leveraging domain-specific knowledge through dissimilarity functions.
• The EDDF framework is versatile and can be integrated into various VAE-based generative models for representation learning.