Sufficient dimension reduction for feature matrices

Abstract: We address the problem of sufficient dimension reduction for feature matrices, which arises often in sensor network localization, brain neuroimaging, and electroencephalography analysis. In general, feature matrices have both row- and column-wise interpretations and contain structural information that can be lost with naive vectorization approaches. To address this, we propose a method called principal support matrix machine (PSMM) for the matrix sufficient dimension reduction. The PSMM converts the sufficient dimension reduction problem into a series of classification problems by dividing the response variables into slices. It effectively utilizes the matrix structure by finding hyperplanes with rank-1 normal matrix that optimally separate the sliced responses. Additionally, we extend our approach to the higher-order tensor case. Our numerical analysis demonstrates that the PSMM outperforms existing methods and has strong interpretability in real data applications.