Infomax is an optimization principle for artificial neural networks and other information processing systems. It prescribes that a function that maps a set of input values I to a set of output values O should be chosen or learned so as to maximize the average Shannon mutual information between I and O, subject to a set of specified constraints and/or noise processes. Infomax algorithms are learning algorithms that perform this optimization process. The principle was described by Linsker in 1988.[1]
Infomax, in its zero-noise limit, is related to the principle of redundancy reduction proposed for biological sensory processing by Horace Barlow in 1961,[2] and applied quantitatively to retinal processing by Atick and Redlich.[3]
One of the applications of infomax has been to an independent component analysis algorithm that finds independent signals by maximizing entropy. Infomax-based ICA was described by Bell and Sejnowski, and Nadal and Parga in 1995.[4] [5]
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