The Stochastic Search Network

A fundamental difficulty when using neural networks applied to pattern recognition, is the problem of stimulus equivalence — the invariance of symbolic information independent of transformation within a search space. For example, symbolically, the letter A remains an A irrespective of its position, size or orientation within an image field. Adult humans can generally recognise patterns accurately, despite such transformations and distortions. Classically it has been hypothesised that this ability is due to a normalisation process that occurs before the classification process begins.