Convergence theory for fuzzy c-means: Counterexamples and repairs

Abstract

A counterexample to the original incorrect convergence theorem for the fuzzy <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">c</i> -means (FCM) clustering algorithms (see J.C. Bezdak, IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. and Math. Intell., vol.PAMI-2, no.1, pp.1-8, 1980) is provided. This counterexample establishes the existence of saddle points of the FCM objective function at locations other than the geometric centroid of fuzzy <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">c</i> -partition space. Counterexamples previously discussed by W.T. Tucker (1987) are summarized. The correct theorem is stated without proof: every FCM iterate sequence converges, at least along a subsequence, to either a local minimum or saddle point of the FCM objective function. Although Tucker's counterexamples and the corrected theory appear elsewhere, they are restated as a caution not to further propagate the original incorrect convergence statement.