An Associative Machine for Dealing with the Visual Field and Some of Its Biological Implications

Abstract

The present state of the field dealing with the understanding and performing of mental activity is largely the outgrowth of the mathematical insights produced by a century or so of developments in formalistic logic and probability theory. Their success in dealing with certain aspects of mental activity, and the ability of the neuron to implement the required mathematics, has given a tremendous impetus to investigation in this field. Yet, our ability to understand and perform artificially the intuitive, associative, and related processes has not passed beyond the elementary level. Therefore, the work described went back to the biological system to see whether alternative mechanisms could not be derived—mechanisms which would simulate these aspects of mental activity better than the classical methods. A specific mechanism for the processing of line visual data was derived. It has broad implications to the whole field of bionics.