Abstract
Two neural mechanisms are described which exhibit recognition of forms. Both are independent of small perturbations at synapses of excitation, threshold, and synchrony, and are referred to partiular appropriate regions of the nervous system, thus suggesting experimental verification. The first mechanism averages an apparition over a group, and in the treatment of this mechanism it is suggested that scansion plays a significant part. The second mechanism reduces an apparition to a standard selected from among its many legitimate presentations. The former mechanism is exemplified by the recognition of chords regardless of pitch and shapes regardless of size. The latter is exemplified here only in the reflexive mechanism translating apparitions to the fovea. Both are extensions to contemporaneous functions of the knowing of universals heretofore treated by the authors only with respect to sequence in time.
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John Simon Guggenheim Fellow for 1947
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Pitts, W., McCulloch, W.S. How we know universals the perception of auditory and visual forms. Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 9, 127–147 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02478291
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02478291