Mixing autoencoder with classifier: conceptual data visualization

Abstract: In this short paper, a neural network that is able to form a low dimensional topological hidden representation is explained. The neural network can be trained as an autoencoder, a classifier or mix of both, and produces different low dimensional topological map for each of them. When it is trained as an autoencoder, the inherent topological structure of the data can be visualized, while when it is trained as a classifier, the topological structure is further constrained by the concept, for example the labels the data, hence the visualization is not only structural but also conceptual. The proposed neural network significantly differ from many dimensional reduction models, primarily in its ability to execute both supervised and unsupervised dimensional reduction. The neural network allows multi perspective visualization of the data, and thus giving more flexibility in data analysis. This paper is supported by preliminary but intuitive visualization experiments.