On a Modification to the Mean Field EM Algorithm in Factorial Learning

Part of Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 9 (NIPS 1996)

Authors

A. Dunmur, D. Titterington

Abstract

A modification is described to the use of mean field approxima(cid:173) tions in the E step of EM algorithms for analysing data from latent structure models, as described by Ghahramani (1995), among oth(cid:173) ers. The modification involves second-order Taylor approximations to expectations computed in the E step. The potential benefits of the method are illustrated using very simple latent profile models.