Face recognition (FR) is a hotspot in pattern recognition and image processing for its wide applications in real life. One of the most challenging problems in FR is single sample face recognition (SSFR). In this paper, we proposed a novel algorithm based on nonnegative sparse representation, collaborative presentation, and probabilistic graph estimation to address SSFR. The proposed algorithm is named as Nonnegative Sparse Probabilistic Estimation (NNSPE). To extract the variation information from the generic training set, we first select some neighbor samples from the generic training set for each sample in the gallery set and the generic training set can be partitioned into some reference subsets. To make more meaningful reconstruction, the proposed method adopts nonnegative sparse representation to reconstruct training samples, and according to the reconstruction coefficients, NNSPE computes the probabilistic label estimation for the samples of the generic training set. Then, for a given test sample, collaborative representation (CR) is used to acquire an adaptive variation subset. Finally, the NNSPE classifies the test sample with the adaptive variation subset and probabilistic label estimation. The experiments on the AR and PIE verify the effectiveness of the proposed method both in recognition rates and time cost.
