Representations in the auditory cortex might be based on mechanisms similar to the visual ventral stream; modules for building invariance to transformations and multiple layers for compositionality and selectivity. In this paper we propose the use of such computational modules for extracting invariant and discriminative audio representations. Building on a theory of invariance in hierarchical architectures, we propose a novel, mid-level representation for acoustical signals, using the empirical distributions of projections on a set of templates and their transformations. Under the assumption that, by construction, this dictionary of templates is composed from similar classes, and samples the orbit of variance-inducing signal transformations (such as shift and scale), the resulting signature is theoretically guaranteed to be unique, invariant to transformations and stable to deformations. Modules of projection and pooling can then constitute layers of deep networks, for learning composite representations. We present the main theoretical and computational aspects of a framework for unsupervised learning of invariant audio representations, empirically evaluated on music genre classification.
Representations that are invariant to translation, scale and other transformations, can considerably reduce the sample complexity of learning, allowing recognition of new object classes from very few examples|a hallmark of human recognition. Empirical estimates of one-dimensional projections of the distribution induced by a group of ane transformations are proven to represent a unique and invariant signature associated with an image. We show how projections yielding invariant signatures for future images can be learned automatically, and updated continuously, during unsupervised visual experience. A module performing ltering and pooling, like simple and complex cells as proposed by Hubel and Wiesel, can compute such estimates. Under this view, a pooling stage estimates a one-dimensional probability distribution. Invariance from observations through a restricted window is equivalent to a sparsity property w.r.t. to a transformation, which yields templates that are a) Gabor for optimal simultaneous invariance to translation and scale or b) very specic for complex, class-dependent transformations such as rotation in depth of faces. Hierarchical architectures consisting of this basic Hubel-Wiesel module inherit its properties of invariance, stability, and discriminability while capturing the compositional organization of the visual world in terms of wholes and parts, and are invariant to complex transformations that may only be locally ane. The theory applies to several existing deep learning convolutional architectures for image and speech recognition. It also suggests that the main computational goal of the ventral stream of visual cortex is to provide a hierarchical representation of new objects images which is invariant to transformations, stable, and discriminative for recognition|and that this representation may be continuously learned in an unsupervised way during development and natural visual experience. This paper constructs translation-invariant operators on L 2 .R d , which are Lipschitz-continuous to the action of diffeomorphisms. A scattering propagator is a path-ordered product of nonlinear and noncommuting operators, each of which computes the modulus of a wavelet transform. A local integration defines a windowed scattering transform, which is proved to be Lipschitz-continuous to the action of C 2 diffeomorphisms. As the window size increases, it converges to a wavelet scattering transform that is translation invariant. Scattering coefficients also provide representations of stationary processes. Expected values depend upon high-order moments and can discriminate processes having the same power spectrum. Scattering operators are extended on L 2 .G , where G is a compact Lie group, and are invariant under the action of G. Combining a scattering on L 2 .R d and on L 2 .SO.d defines a translation- and rotation-invariant scattering on L 2 .R d . © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.