Sparse representation and learning in visual recognition: Theory and applications

Sparse representation and learning has been widely used in computational intelligence, machine learning, computer vision and pattern recognition, etc. Mathematically, solving sparse representation and learning involves seeking the sparsest linear combination of basis functions from an overcomplete dictionary. A rational behind this is the sparse connectivity between nodes in human brain. This paper presents a survey of some recent work on sparse representation, learning and modeling with emphasis on visual recognition. It covers both the theory and application aspects. We first review the sparse representation and learning theory including general sparse representation, structured sparse representation, high-dimensional nonlinear learning, Bayesian compressed sensing, sparse subspace learning, non-negative sparse representation, robust sparse representation, and efficient sparse representation. We then introduce the applications of sparse theory to various visual recognition tasks, including feature representation and selection, dictionary learning, Sparsity Induced Similarity (SIS) measures, sparse coding based classification frameworks, and sparsity-related topics. ► This paper presents a thorough review work on sparse representation and learning with emphasis on visual recognition. ► We review the sparse representation theory. ► We also introduce the applications of sparse theory to various visual recognition tasks.