Feng Qi

Feng Qi, Guanjun Jiang

How the human vision system addresses the object identity-preserving recognition problem is largely unknown. Here, we use a vision recognition-reconstruction network (RRN) to investigate the development, recognition, learning and forgetting mechanisms, and achieve similar characteristics to electrophysiological measurements in monkeys. First, in network development study, the RRN also experiences critical developmental stages characterized by specificities in neuron types, synapse and activation patterns, and visual task performance from the early stage of coarse salience map recognition to mature stage of fine structure recognition. In digit recognition study, we witness that the RRN could maintain object invariance representation under various viewing conditions by coordinated adjustment of responses of population neurons. And such concerted population responses contained untangled object identity and properties information that could be accurately extracted via high-level cortices or even a simple weighted summation decoder. In the learning and forgetting study, novel structure recognition is implemented by adjusting entire synapses in low magnitude while pattern specificities of original synaptic connectivity are preserved, which guaranteed a learning process without disrupting the existing functionalities. This work benefits the understanding of the human visual processing mechanism and the development of human-like machine intelligence.

Feng Qi, Wenchuan Wu

Human thinking requires the brain to understand the meaning of language expression and to properly organize the thoughts flow using the language. However, current natural language processing models are primarily limited in the word probability estimation. Here, we proposed a Language guided imagination (LGI) network to incrementally learn the meaning and usage of numerous words and syntaxes, aiming to form a human-like machine thinking process. LGI contains three subsystems: (1) vision system that contains an encoder to disentangle the input or imagined scenarios into abstract population representations, and an imagination decoder to reconstruct imagined scenario from higher level representations; (2) Language system, that contains a binarizer to transfer symbol texts into binary vectors, an IPS (mimicking the human IntraParietal Sulcus, implemented by an LSTM) to extract the quantity information from the input texts, and a textizer to convert binary vectors into text symbols; (3) a PFC (mimicking the human PreFrontal Cortex, implemented by an LSTM) to combine inputs of both language and vision representations, and predict text symbols and manipulated images accordingly. LGI has incrementally learned eight different syntaxes (or tasks), with which a machine thinking loop has been formed and validated by the proper interaction between language and vision system. The paper provides a new architecture to let the machine learn, understand and use language in a human-like way that could ultimately enable a machine to construct fictitious 'mental' scenario and possess intelligence.