The neurologic of matching filters

The neurophysiology of the visual pathways is reviewed with the idea in min d that its neurons constitute a vast array of matching filters, each one ma tched to a different combination of stimulus parameters. It is shown that t his explains some of the facts about the size, shape and form of receptive fields. The question is raised how receptive field properties might be matc hed to some of the logical, non-linear, requirements far pattern recognitio n, and it is suggested that signaling the probabilities of features being p resent might provide a step towards a solution. The usefulness of matching filters in exploiting the statistical properties of natural environments is also discussed. (C) 1999 The Optical Society of Amer ica. [S1070-9762(99)0 0309-7].