Patent US 5,652,898

A dictionary memory acquires knowledge of degrees of association between words. Word units are provided, each corresponding to a word and each storing word occurrence information, and these word units are connected by links in which the degree of association between words is stored, forming a network. The word units use word occurrence information to determine the degrees of activity of words, links determine word expectations based on the degrees of activity and degrees of association between words, and the word units determine likelihoods of words in input registers by adding the expectations thereto. Next, words selected by a maximum-likelihood word selecting part are placed in an output register by the corresponding word units. Links adjust degrees of association between words based on the likelihoods and degrees of activity of words.