  Tensor methods have emerged as a powerful paradigm for consistent learning of
many latent variable models such as topic models, independent component
analysis and dictionary learning. Model parameters are estimated via CP
decomposition of the observed higher order input moments. However, in many
domains, additional invariances such as shift invariances exist, enforced via
models such as convolutional dictionary learning. In this paper, we develop
novel tensor decomposition algorithms for parameter estimation of convolutional
models. Our algorithm is based on the popular alternating least squares method,
but with efficient projections onto the space of stacked circulant matrices.
Our method is embarrassingly parallel and consists of simple operations such as
fast Fourier transforms and matrix multiplications. Our algorithm converges to
the dictionary much faster and more accurately compared to the alternating
minimization over filters and activation maps.
