Pitts & McCulloch - How We Know Universals

BULLETIN OFMATHFA~IATICAL BIOPHYSICSVOLUME 9, 1947

HOW WE KNOW UNIVERSALSTHE PERCEPTION OF AUDITORY AND VISUAL FORMS

WALTER PITTSJOHN SIMON GUGGENHEIM FELLOW FOR 1947ANDWARREN S. MCCULLOCI-IDEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OFMEDICINE AT THE ILLINOIS NEUROPSYCHIATRIC INSTITUTE, CHICAGOTWO neural mechanisms are described which exhibit recognition offorms. Both are independent of small perturbations at synapses of ex-citation, threshold, and synchrony, and are referred to particular appro-priate regions of the nel~ous system, thus suggesting experimental veri-fication. The first mechanism averages an apparition over a group, andin the treatment of this mechanism it is suggested that scansion playsa significant part. The second mechanism reduces an apparition to astandard selected from among its many legitimate presentations. Theformer mechanism is exemplified by the recognition of chords regardlessof ~ pitch and shapes regardless of size. The latter is exemplified hereonly in the reflexive mechanism translating apparitions to the fovea.Both are extensions to contemporaneous functions of the knowing of uni-versals heretofore treated by the authors only with respect to sequencein time.

To demonstrate existential consequences of known characters ofneurons, any theoretically conceivable net embodying the possibilitywill serve. It is equally legitimate to have every net accompanied byanatomical directions as to where to record the action of its supposedcomponents, for experiment will serve to eliminate those which donot fit the facts. But it is wise to construct even these nets so thattheir principal function is little perturbed by Small perturbations inexcitation, threshold, or detail of connection within the same neigh-borhood. Genes can only predetermine statistical order, and originalchaos must reign over nets that learn, for learning builds new orderaccording to a law of use.Numerous nets, embodied in special nervous structures, serve toclassify information according to useful common characters. In vi-sion they detect the equivalence of apparitions related by similarityand congruence, like those of a single physical thing seen from vari-ous places. In audition, they recognize timbre and chord, regardlessof pitch. The equivalent apparitions in all cases share a commonfigure and define a group of transformations that take the equiva-

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PERCEPTION OF AUDITORY AND VISUAL FORMS

lents into one another but preserve the figure invariant. So, for ex-ample, the group of translations removes a square appearing at oneplace to other places; but the figure of a square it leaves invariant.These figures are the

geometric objects

of Cartan and Weyl, the

Ge,stalten

of Wertheimer and KShler. We seek general methods for de-signing nervous nets which recognize figures in such a way as toproduce the same output for every input belonging to the figure. Weendeavor particularly to find those which fit the histology and physi-ology of the actual structure.The epicritical modalities map the continuous variables of senseinto the neurons of a fine cortical mosaic that str~ikingly imitates acontinuous manifold. The visual half-field is projected continuouslyto the

area striata,

and tones a~'e projected by pitch along Heschl'sgyrus. We can describe such a manifold, say ~/, by a set of coordi-nates (x l, x~, ..- , xn) constituting the point-vector x, and denotethe distributions of excitation received in 2~/by the functions ~ (x, t)having the value unity if there is a neuron at the point x which hasfired within one synaptic delay prior to the time t, and otherwise,the value zero. For simplicity, we shall measure time in mean synap-tic delays, supposed equal, constant, and about a millisecond long.Indications of time will often not be given.Let G be the group of transformations which carry the functions(x, t) describing apparitions into their equivalents of the same fig-ure. The group G may always be taken finite, as is seen from theatomicity of the manifold; let it have N members. We shall distin-guish four problems of ascending complexity:.1) The transformation T of G can be generated by transforma-tions t of the underlying manifold ~/, so that

Tr ~-

~[~(x)] ; e.g.,if G is the group of translations, then Tr (x) -- ~ (x + at), where aris a constant vector depending only upon T. If G is the group of dila-tations,

T~ (x) -~-~ (a~x),

where ar is a positive real number depend-ing only upon T. All such transformations are linear:

T[ar +

fl~p(x)]

-- ar ] + fl~[t(x) ]"-aTe(x) + flT~(x).

2) The transformations T of G cannot be so generated, but arestill linear and independent of the time t. An example is to take thegradient of ~(x), or to replace ~(x) by its average over a certaincircle surrounding x.3) The transformations T of G are linear, but depend also uponthe time. For example, they take a moving average over the preced,ing five synaptic delays Or take some difference as an approximationto the time-derivative of ~ (x, t).

WALTER PITTS AND WARREN S. MCCULLOCH

1294) Not all T of G are linear.Our special nets are essays in problem 1. The simplest way toconstruct invariants of a given distribution ~(x, t) of excitation isto average over the group G. Let f be an arbitrary functional whichassigns a unique numerical value, in any way, to every distribution(x, t) of excitation in ~/ over time. We form every transform T~of r (x, t), evaluate t [Tel, and average the result over G to derive1

a = -- ]==~ iT6].

(1)N

all

T~C~

If we had started with $6, S of G, instead of ~, we should have1

E f[T~,] : a,

(2)

E f[TSce]:~ A,,T

N T~G

such that

TS-I~G

for

TS -1

is in the group when, and only when, T is in the group; thatis, the terms of the sum (1) are merely permuted.To character,ize completely the figure of ~ (x, t) under G by in-variants of this kind, we need a whole manifold 2 of such numbersa for different functionals f, with as many dimensions in general asthe original ~/; if we describe 2 by coordinates (~1,5:2, "", ~m) -~ ~,we may fulfill this requirement formally with a single f which de-pends upon ~ as a parameter as well as upon the distribution ~ whichis its argument, and wTite1Cr,G(~) :-- •

f[Tr

(3)

N TgG

If the nervous system needs less than complete information in orderto recognize shapes, the manifold Z may be much smaller than ~/,have fewer dimensions, and indeed reduce to isolated points. Thetime t may be one dimension of 2, as may some of the xj represent-lng position in 2M.Suppose that G belongs to problems 1 or 2 and that the dimen-sions of S are all spatial ; then the simplest nervous net to realize thisformal process is obtained in the following way: Let the originalmanifold ~/be duplicated on N--1 sheets, a manifold ~/r for each TOf G, and connected to ~v/or its sensory afferents in such a way thatwhatever produces the distribution ~(x) on ~ produces the trans-formed distnibution

TC,(x)

on ~T. Thereupon, separately for eachvalue of ~ for each ~MT, the value of

f[Tr

is computed by a suitablenet, and the results from all the ~r's are added by convergence on

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