Attraction-Repulsion Spectrum in Neighbor Embeddings

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Böhm, Jan Niklas, Berens, Philipp, Kobak, Dmitry
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2020
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author Böhm, Jan Niklas
Berens, Philipp
Kobak, Dmitry
author_facet Böhm, Jan Niklas
Berens, Philipp
Kobak, Dmitry
contents Neighbor embeddings are a family of methods for visualizing complex high-dimensional datasets using $k$NN graphs. To find the low-dimensional embedding, these algorithms combine an attractive force between neighboring pairs of points with a repulsive force between all points. One of the most popular examples of such algorithms is t-SNE. Here we empirically show that changing the balance between the attractive and the repulsive forces in t-SNE using the exaggeration parameter yields a spectrum of embeddings, which is characterized by a simple trade-off: stronger attraction can better represent continuous manifold structures, while stronger repulsion can better represent discrete cluster structures and yields higher $k$NN recall. We find that UMAP embeddings correspond to t-SNE with increased attraction; mathematical analysis shows that this is because the negative sampling optimisation strategy employed by UMAP strongly lowers the effective repulsion. Likewise, ForceAtlas2, commonly used for visualizing developmental single-cell transcriptomic data, yields embeddings corresponding to t-SNE with the attraction increased even more. At the extreme of this spectrum lie Laplacian Eigenmaps. Our results demonstrate that many prominent neighbor embedding algorithms can be placed onto the attraction-repulsion spectrum, and highlight the inherent trade-offs between them.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2007_08902
institution arXiv
publishDate 2020
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Attraction-Repulsion Spectrum in Neighbor Embeddings
Böhm, Jan Niklas
Berens, Philipp
Kobak, Dmitry
Machine Learning
Neighbor embeddings are a family of methods for visualizing complex high-dimensional datasets using $k$NN graphs. To find the low-dimensional embedding, these algorithms combine an attractive force between neighboring pairs of points with a repulsive force between all points. One of the most popular examples of such algorithms is t-SNE. Here we empirically show that changing the balance between the attractive and the repulsive forces in t-SNE using the exaggeration parameter yields a spectrum of embeddings, which is characterized by a simple trade-off: stronger attraction can better represent continuous manifold structures, while stronger repulsion can better represent discrete cluster structures and yields higher $k$NN recall. We find that UMAP embeddings correspond to t-SNE with increased attraction; mathematical analysis shows that this is because the negative sampling optimisation strategy employed by UMAP strongly lowers the effective repulsion. Likewise, ForceAtlas2, commonly used for visualizing developmental single-cell transcriptomic data, yields embeddings corresponding to t-SNE with the attraction increased even more. At the extreme of this spectrum lie Laplacian Eigenmaps. Our results demonstrate that many prominent neighbor embedding algorithms can be placed onto the attraction-repulsion spectrum, and highlight the inherent trade-offs between them.
title Attraction-Repulsion Spectrum in Neighbor Embeddings
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.08902