Locally excitatory globally inhibitory oscillator networks: theory and application to pattern segmentation

An novel class of locally excitatory, globally inhibitory oscillator networks (LEGION) is proposed and investigated analytically and by computer simulation. The model of each oscillator corresponds to a standard relaxation oscillator with two time scales. The network exhibits a mechanism of selective gating, whereby an oscillator jumping up to its active phase rapidly recruits the oscillators stimulated by the same pattern, while preventing other oscillators from jumping up. We show analytically that with the selective gating mechanism the network rapidly achieves both synchronization within blocks of oscillators that are stimulated by connected regions and desynchronization between different blocks. Computer simulations demonstrate LEGION´s promising ability for segmenting multiple input patterns in real time. This model lays a physical foundation for the oscillatory correlation theory of feature binding, and may provide an effective computational framework for pattern segmentation and figure/ground segregation