The paper introduces a robust clustering algorithm that can automatically determine the unknown cluster number from noisy data without any a-priori information. We show how our clustering algorithm can be derived from a general learning theory, named CoRe learning, that models a cortical memory mechanism called repetition suppression. Moreover, we describe CoRe clustering relationships with Rival Penalized Competitive Learning (RPCL), showing how CoRe extends this model by strengthening the rival penalization estimation by means of robust loss functions. Finally, we present the results of simulations concerning the unsupervised segmentation of noisy images.