Shape recognition and illusory conjunctions
Geoffrey E. Hinton, Kevin Lang · 1985
A bst ract and-egg problem can be solved by using a cooperative computation in One way to achieve viewpoint-invariant shape recognition is to impose a canonical, object-based frame of reference on a shape and to describe the positions, sizes and orientations of the shape's features relative to the imposed frame. This compulation can be implemented in a parallel network of neuron-like processors, but the network has a tendency to make errors of a peculiar kind: When presented with several shapes it sometimes perceives one shape in tlie position of another. The parameters can be carefully tuned to avoid these "illusory conjunctions " in normal circumstances, but they reappear if the visual input is replaced by a random mask before the network has settled down. Treisman and Schmidt (1982) have shown that people make similar errors. 1.