Entropic Associative Memory for Manuscript Symbols

Manuscript symbols can be stored, recognized and retrieved from an entropic digital memory that is associative and distributed but yet declarative; memory retrieval is a constructive operation; symbols not contained in the memory are rejected directly without search; and memory operations can be performed through parallel computations. Manuscript symbols, both letters and numerals, are stored in Associative Memory Registers that have an associated entropy. The memory recognition operation obeys an entropy trade-off between precision and recall, and the entropy level impacts on the quality of the objects recovered through the memory retrieval operation. We discuss the operational characteristics of the system for retrieving objects with both complete and incomplete information, such as severe occlusions. The experiments reported in this paper add evidence that supports the scalability of the framework and its potential for developing practical applications. We also compare the present entropic associative memories to Hopfield’s paradigm and discuss its potential for the study of natural memory.