What is the purpose of whitening in Independent Component Analysis?

[dexterdev]

Hi all,
White noise means a noise signal with Power spectral density flat in the working frequency ranges. OK I know why it is named as white too. But what does really whitening means for example in Independent component analysis etc.

-Devanand T

 

[meBigGuy]

The wikipedia article on independent component analysis talks about whitening as a preprocessing step and the entry on whitening explains what it is. Read those and then ask questions.