Tag Archives: pattern recognition

Perception is a creative act: On the connection between creativity and pattern recognition

An answer I wrote to the Quora question Does the human brain work solely by pattern recognition?:

Great question! Broadly speaking, the brain does two things: it processes ‘inputs’ from the world and from the body, and generates ‘outputs’ to the muscles and internal organs.

Pattern recognition shows up most clearly during the processing of inputs. Recognition allows us to navigate the world, seeking beneficial/pleasurable experiences and avoiding harmful/negative experiences.* So pattern recognition must also be supplemented by associative learning: humans and animals must learn how patterns relate to each other, and to their positive and negative consequences.

And patterns must not simply be recognized: they must also be categorized. We are bombarded by patterns all the time. The only way to make sense of them is to categorize them into classes that can all be treated similarly. We have one big category for ‘snake’, even though the sensory patterns produced by specific snakes can be quite different. Pattern recognition and classification are closely intertwined, so in what follows I’m really talking about both.

Creativity does have a connection with pattern recognition. One of the most complex and fascinating manifestations of pattern recognition is the process of analogy and metaphor. People often draw analogies between seemingly disparate topics: this requires creative use of the faculty of pattern recognition. Flexible intelligence depends on the ability to recognize patterns of similarity between phenomena. This is a particularly useful skill for scientists, teachers, artists, writers, poets and public thinkers, but it shows up all over the place. Many internet memes, for example, involve drawing analogies: seeing the structural connections between unrelated things.

One of my favourites is a meme on twitter called #sameguy. It started as a game of uploading pictures of two celebrities that resemble each other, followed by the hashtag #sameguy. But it evolved to include abstract ideas and phenomena that are the “same” in some respect. Making cultural metaphors like this requires creativity, as does understanding them. One has to free one’s mind of literal-mindedness in order to temporarily ignore the ever-present differences between things and focus on the similarities.

Here’s a blog that collects #sameguy submissions: Same Guy

On twitter you sometimes come across more imaginative, analogical #sameguy posts: #sameguy – Twitter Search

The topic of metaphor and analogy is one of the most fascinating aspects of intelligence, in my opinion. I think it’s far more important that coming up with theories about ‘consciousness’. 🙂 Check out this answer:

Why are metaphors and allusions used while writing?
(This Quora answer is a cross-post of a blog post I wrote: Metaphor: the Alchemy of Thought)

In one sense metaphor and analogy are central to scientific research. I’ve written about this here:

What are some of the most important problems in computational neuroscience?

Science: the Quest for Symmetry

This essay is tangentially related to the topic of creativity and patterns:

From Cell Membranes to Computational Aesthetics: On the Importance of Boundaries in Life and Art

* The brain’s outputs — commands to muscles and glands — are closely  linked with pattern recognition too. What you choose to do depends on  what you can do given your intentions, circumstances, and bodily  configuration. The state that you and the universe happen to be in  constrains what you can do, and so it is useful for the brain to  recognize and categorize the state in order to mediate decision-making,  or even non-conscious behavior.When you’re walking on a busy street, you rapidly process pathways that are available to you. even if you stumble, you can quickly and unconsciously act to minimize damage to yourself and others. Abilities of this sort suggest that pattern recognition is not purely a way to create am ‘image’ of the world, but also a central part of our ability to navigate it.

Does the human brain work solely by pattern recognition?

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Why can most people identify a color without a reference but not a musical note?

[I was asked this on Quora. Here’s a slightly modified version of my answer.]

This is an excellent question! I’m pretty sure there is not yet a definitive answer, but I suspect that the eventual answer will involve two factors:

  1. The visual system in humans is much more highly developed than the auditory system.
  2. Human cultures typically teach color words to all children, but formal musical training — complete with named notes — is relatively rare.

When you look at the brain’s cortical regions, you realize that the primary visual cortex has the most well-defined laminar structure in the whole brain. Primary auditory cortex is less structured. We still don’t know exactly how the brain’s layers contribute to sensory processing, but some theories suggest that the more well-defined cortices are capable of making more fine distinctions.

[See this blog post for more on cortical lamination:
How to navigate on Planet Brain]

However, I don’t think the explanation for the difference between music and color perception is purely neuroscientific. Culture may well play an important role. I think that with training, absolute pitch — the ability to identify the exact note rather than the interval between notes — could become more common. Speakers of tonal languages like Mandarin or Cantonese are more likely to have absolute pitch, especially if they’ve had early musical training. (More on this below.)

Also: when people with no musical training are exposed to tunes they are familiar with, many of them can tell if the absolute pitch is correct or not [1] Similarly, when asked to produce a familiar tune, many people can hit the right pitch. [2]. This suggests that at least some humans have the latent ability to use and/or recognize absolute pitch.

Perhaps with early training, note names will become as common as color words.

This article by a UCSD psychologist described the mystery quite well:

Diana Deutsch – Absolute Pitch.

As someone with absolute pitch, it has always seemed puzzling to me that  this ability should be so rare. When we name a color, for example as  green, we do not do this by viewing a different color, determining its  name, and comparing the relationship between the two colors. Instead,  the labeling process is direct and immediate.

She has some fascinating data on music training among tonal language speakers:

” Figure 2. Percentages of subjects who obtained a score of at least  85% correct on the test for absolute pitch. CCOM: students at the  Central Conservatory of Music, Beijing, China; all speakers of Mandarin.  ESM: students at Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York; all  nontone language speakers.”

Looks like if you speak a tonal language and start learning music early, you are far more likely to have perfect pitch. (Separating causation from correlation may be tricky.)

References:

[1] Memory for the absolute pitch of familiar songs.
[2] Absolute memory for musical pitch: evidence from the production of learned melodies.

Quora: Why can most people identify a color without a reference but not a musical note?

The Mysterious Power of Naming in Human Cognition

I’ve written a long-form essay for the blog/aggregator site 3 Quarks Daily:

Boundaries and Subtleties: the Mysterious Power of Naming in Human Cognition

Here’s a taster:

I’ve divided up the essay into four parts. Here’s the plan:

  1. We’ll introduce two key motifs — the named and the nameless — with a little help from the Tao Te Ching.
  2. We’ll examine a research problem that crops up in cognitive  psychology, neuroscience and artificial intelligence, and link it with  more Taoist motifs.
  3. We’ll look at how naming might give us power over animals, other people, and even mathematical objects.
  4. We’ll explore the power of names in computer science, which will facilitate some wild cosmic speculation.