Validation in distributed representations

In distributed representations, an object is represented as a pattern of activation over a number of units. Not all patterns of activity are valid in a given context. In the case of the Hopfield model of content addressable memory only the patterns of activation corresponding to the stored memories are valid. The problem of validating a given pattern of activity is called the validity problem. It is shown that, using complex activations, it is possible to solve the validity problem. The proposed model can also act as a content addressable memory though its dynamics is intractable because of asymmetric connections. A more complicated learning algorithm which can be used to increase the capacity of the model is considered