Learning a world model and planning with a self-organizing, dynamic neural system

We present a connectionist architecture that can learn a model of the relations between perceptions and actions and use this model for behavior planning. State representations are learned with a growing self-organizing layer which is directly coupled to a perception and a motor layer. Knowledge about possible state transitions is encoded in the lateral connectivity. Motor signals modulate this lateral connectivity and a dynamic field on the layer organizes a planning process. All mechanisms are local and adaptation is based on Hebbian ideas. The model is continuous in the action, perception, and time domain.Comment: 9 pages, see http://www.marc-toussaint.net

Feature-driven Emergence of Model Graphs for Object Recognition and Categorization

An important requirement for the expression of cognitive structures is the ability to form mental objects by rapidly binding together constituent parts. In this sense, one may conceive the brain\u27s data structure to have the form of graphs whose nodes are labeled with elementary features. These provide a versatile data format with the additional ability to render the structure of any mental object. Because of the multitude of possible object variations the graphs are required to be dynamic. Upon presentation of an image a so-called model graph should rapidly emerge by binding together memorized subgraphs derived from earlier learning examples driven by the image features. In this model, the richness and flexibility of the mind is made possible by a combinatorical game of immense complexity. Consequently, the emergence of model graphs is a laborious task which, in computer vision, has most often been disregarded in favor of employing model graphs tailored to specific object categories like, for instance, faces in frontal pose. Recognition or categorization of arbitrary objects, however, demands dynamic graphs. In this work we propose a form of graph dynamics, which proceeds in two steps. In the first step component classifiers, which decide whether a feature is present in an image, are learned from training images. For processing arbitrary objects, features are small localized grid graphs, so-called parquet graphs, whose nodes are attributed with Gabor amplitudes. Through combination of these classifiers into a linear discriminant that conforms to Linsker\u27s infomax principle a weighted majority voting scheme is implemented. It allows for preselection of salient learning examples, so-called model candidates, and likewise for preselection of categories the object in the presented image supposably belongs to. Each model candidate is verified in a second step using a variant of elastic graph matching, a standard correspondence-based technique for face and object recognition. To further differentiate between model candidates with similar features it is asserted that the features be in similar spatial arrangement for the model to be selected. Model graphs are constructed dynamically by assembling model features into larger graphs according to their spatial arrangement. From the viewpoint of pattern recognition, the presented technique is a combination of a discriminative (feature-based) and a generative (correspondence-based) classifier while the majority voting scheme implemented in the feature-based part is an extension of existing multiple feature subset methods. We report the results of experiments on standard databases for object recognition and categorization. The method achieved high recognition rates on identity, object category, pose, and illumination type. Unlike many other models the presented technique can also cope with varying background, multiple objects, and partial occlusion

Behaviourally meaningful representations from normalisation and context-guided denoising

Many existing independent component analysis algorithms include a preprocessing stage where the inputs are sphered. This amounts to normalising the data such that all correlations between the variables are removed. In this work, I show that sphering allows very weak contextual modulation to steer the development of meaningful features. Context-biased competition has been proposed as a model of covert attention and I propose that sphering-like normalisation also allows weaker top-down bias to guide attention

Binding and Normalization of Binary Sparse Distributed Representations by Context-Dependent Thinning

Distributed representations were often criticized as inappropriate for encoding of data with a complex structure. However Plate's Holographic Reduced Representations and Kanerva's Binary Spatter Codes are recent schemes that allow on-the-fly encoding of nested compositional structures by real-valued or dense binary vectors of fixed dimensionality. In this paper we consider procedures of the Context-Dependent Thinning which were developed for representation of complex hierarchical items in the architecture of Associative-Projective Neural Networks. These procedures provide binding of items represented by sparse binary codevectors (with low probability of 1s). Such an encoding is biologically plausible and allows a high storage capacity of distributed associative memory where the codevectors may be stored. In contrast to known binding procedures, Context-Dependent Thinning preserves the same low density (or sparseness) of the bound codevector for varied number of component codevectors. Besides, a bound codevector is not only similar to another one with similar component codevectors (as in other schemes), but it is also similar to the component codevectors themselves. This allows the similarity of structures to be estimated just by the overlap of their codevectors, without retrieval of the component codevectors. This also allows an easy retrieval of the component codevectors. Examples of algorithmic and neural-network implementations of the thinning procedures are considered. We also present representation examples for various types of nested structured data (propositions using role-filler and predicate-arguments representation schemes, trees, directed acyclic graphs) using sparse codevectors of fixed dimension. Such representations may provide a fruitful alternative to the symbolic representations of traditional AI, as well as to the localist and microfeature-based connectionist representations

Поиск аналогов с помощью распределенных представлений

Рассматриваются модели первой стадии рассуждений по аналогии: поиск в памяти аналога некоторой ситуации. Ситуации и аналоги иерархически структурированы и могут включать отношения высших порядков, что усложняет поиск при использовании традиционных подходов. Приводятся схемы распределенного представления аналогов в виде многомерных бинарных векторов. Показано, что степень сходства ситуаций можно оценить по величине скалярного произведения представляющих их векторов. Это создает основу для моделирования процессов поиска аналогов людьми и для более эффективного поиска в базах знаний.Розглядаються моделі першої стадії міркувань за аналогією: пошук у пам’яті аналогів деякої ситуації. Ситуації та аналоги ієрархічно структуровані і можуть включати відношення вищих порядків, що ускладнює пошук за умов використання традиційних підходів. Наводяться схеми розподіленого представлення аналогів у вигляді багатовимірних бінарних векторів. Показано, що ступінь схожості ситуацій можна відобразити за допомогою величини скалярного добутку векторів, які їх представляють. Це створює підґрунтя для моделювання процесів пошуку аналогів людьми та для більш ефективного пошуку у базах знань.Models of the first stage in analogical reasoning, analogical access, are considered. Schemes for distributed representations of hierarchically structured episodes as multidimensional binary vectors are presented. Such schemes reflect similarity of analogical episodes by the scalar product of vectors representing them. This simplifies searching for the most similar analogs and allows modeling of preferences demonstrated by humans in analogical access tasks

GTM through time

The standard GTM (generative topographic mapping) algorithm assumes that the data on which it is trained consists of independent, identically distributed (iid) vectors. For time series, however, the iid assumption is a poor approximation. In this paper we show how the GTM algorithm can be extended to model time series by incorporating it as the emission density in a hidden Markov model. Since GTM has discrete hidden states we are able to find a tractable EM algorithm, based on the forward-backward algorithm, to train the model. We illustrate the performance of GTM through time using flight recorder data from a helicopter

Phoneme-retrieval; voice recognition; vowels recognition

A phoneme-retrieval technique is proposed, which is due to the particular way of the construction of the network. An initial set of neurons is given. The number of these neurons is approximately equal to the number of typical structures of the data. For example if the network is built for voice retrieval then the number of neurons must be equal to the number of characteristic phonemes of the alphabet of the language spoken by the social group to which the particular person belongs. Usually this task is very complicated and the network can depend critically on the samples used for the learning. If the network is built for image retrieval then it works only if the data to be retrieved belong to a particular set of images. If the network is built for voice recognition it works only for some particular set of words. A typical example is the words used for the flight of airplanes. For example a command like the "airplane should make a turn of 120 degrees towards the east" can be easily recognized by the network if a suitable learning procedure is used.Comment: 10 page

Applying Deep Learning and Machine Learning Algorithms for The Identification of Medicinal Plant Leaves Based on Their Spectral Characteristics

The study and consideration of medicinal plants have been ongoing throughout history due to their significant role in maintaining the well-being of mammals. Although identifying medicinal plants can be a valuable skill, it is often time-consuming, tedious, and requires the expertise of a specialist. The project works on the technique of image processing, which identifies the various medicinal plants. There has been a strong emphasis on improving efficiency through the application of technology, with a focus on incorporating digital image processing and pattern recognition techniques. To ensure accurate plant identification, proposals involving the application of computer vision neural network techniques have been advanced. This approach involves neural network models such as CNN, SVM, KNN, and Navie Bay for identifying the medical plants based on their respective features. After the validation step, the project provides a classification of 92.3 precision and 90.56 F1 score