Critical Evaluation of a Theoretical Approach Used to Describe Pattern/Object Recognition

Critical Evaluation of a Theoretical Approach Used to Describe Pattern/Object Recognition

Pattern/object recognition is concerned with the processes involved in

the identification of images and objects. This essentially involves

taking information that enters the visual system and comparing this

with information stored in memory, and finding a match. There are

three approaches within pattern recognition; template and prototype

theories, feature comparison theories and structural theories. The

focus of this essay is feature comparison theories, their advantages

and disadvantages and their overall success in pattern/object

recognition.

Feature comparison models were developed in response to the many

problems found with template and prototype theories. Template theory

proposed that humans have separate rigid templates in their long-term

memory for every possible pattern/object. However flexibility is a

considerable limitation within this approach as one template could not

cover all the possible forms of a pattern. For example, humans would

have to possess templates for every possible form of the letter H and

to store this number of templates has been widely regarded as

implausible (Eysenck & Keane, 2000). Feature theories deal with the

flexibility problem of template theories as they suggest that

templates are only needed for each feature and not each pattern,

therefore less information needs to be stored in memory. Although

prototype theories developed on template theories and suggested that

humans have prototypes; which are a typical representation of a

pattern/object rather than templates, problems were still apparent as

they we...

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...w features are

combined and recognised thereafter as actual objects in the

environment. Although supported by both behavioural and neurological

evidence, feature models are limited as they do not account for

top-down processes, and at best address only part of the process of

pattern/object recognition.

References

Eysenck, M. W., & Keane, M. T. (2000). Cognitive Psychology: A

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Eysenck, M. W. (1993). Principles of cognitive psychology. Hove:

Lawrence Erlbaum.

Goldstein, B. (2001). Sensation and Perception, 6th ed. London:

Wadsworth.

Medin, D. L., Ross, B. H., and Markman, A. B. (2001). Cognitive

Psychology (3rd ed). Orlando: Harcourt Brace.

Payne, D. G., & Wenger, M. J. (1998). Cognitive psychology. Boston:

Houghton Mifflin.