Self-organization in a perceptual network

The emergence of a feature-analyzing function from the development rules of simple, multilayered networks is explored. It is shown that even a single developing cell of a layered network exhibits a remarkable set of optimization properties that are closely related to issues in statistics, theoretical physics, adaptive signal processing, the formation of knowledge representation in artificial intelligence, and information theory. The network studied is based on the visual system. These results are used to infer an information-theoretic principle that can be applied to the network as a whole, rather than a single cell. The organizing principle proposed is that the network connections develop in such a way as to maximize the amount of information that is preserved when signals are transformed at each processing stage, subject to certain constraints. The operation of this principle is illustrated for some simple cases.<>