Patent US 6,397,201

The e-cell is a computational element for the construction of circuits capable of performing transform invariant pattern recognition, scene segmentation, and regularity extraction in a variety of sensory modes including vision, hearing, olefaction, touch, etc. The e-cell consists of a cell body, an output terminal, and set of tree-connected input regions each of which have one or more input terminals and corresponding stored weights. The e-cell is capable of learning and subsequently discriminating multidimensional (in the mathematical sense) activation patterns applied to its inputs. The strictness with which the e-cell requires the presence in the target of each dimension of a learned pattern is dynamically adjustable, thus making it suitable to recognition of learned patterns under occlusion and various kinds of degradation. The strictness of discrimination across the region dimension is independent of the strictness of recognition within each dimension. The e-cell can also be configured to perform non-memory roles such as contrast enhancement, pattern comparison, signal routing, and event timing.The e-cell pair totem provides a circuit construction module of cortically inspired circuits for transform invariant pattern recognition and scene segmentation in a variety of sensory modes including vision, hearing, olefaction, touch, etc. The e-cell pair totem implements the forward and backward paths, feedback connections and consequent oscillatory dynamics characteristic of e-circuits. The basic totem circuit is specialized to create a basic memory circuit. The basic memory circuit is extended to allow contextual and associative information to influence recognition by the memory stage of the basic memory circuit.