Improving generalisation skills in a neural network on the basis of neurophysiological data.

The distribution of striate cortex cells exhibits a maximum number of cells tuned to vertical and horizontal orientations (Mansfield, 1974). This was interpreted as an adaptation of the visual system to the presence in the visual environment of greater amounts of vertical and horizontal information compared to information from other orientations (Keil & Cristobal, 2000). The present research confirms that vertical and horizontal orientations are, indeed, present in greater number in natural scenes. After normalization of the amount of information across all orientations, vertical information appeared to be better for bottom-up categorization. We demonstrate this using a connectionist autoassociator model of categorization used elsewhere in simulations of early infant categorization.