Taxonomy
The Self-Organizing Map algorithm belongs to the field of Artificial Neural Networks and Neural Computation. More broadly it belongs to the field of Computational Intelligence. The Self-Organizing Map is an unsupervised neural network that uses a competitive (winner-take-all) learning strategy. It is related to other unsupervised neural networks such as the Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) method. It is related to other competitive learning neural networks such as the the Neural Gas Algorithm, and the Learning Vector Quantization algorithm, which is a similar algorithm for classification without connections between the neurons. Additionally, SOM is a baseline technique that has inspired many variations and extensions, not limited to the Adaptive-Subspace Self-Organizing Map (ASSOM).
Efstathios Chatzikyriakidis 