SUS: learning of the categories of visual objects

• Authors: Zbigniew Les;Magdalena Les
• Venue: ISPRA'06 Proceedings of the 5th WSEAS International Conference on Signal Processing, Robotics and Automation
• Year: 2006

In this paper the new method of learning of the visual objects, called the categorical learning, is presented. In Shape Understanding System (SUS) learning is seen as a continuous process where the knowledge can be acquired on many levels of the categorical hierarchies. Categorical learning that is part of the shape understanding method was applied to learn selected categories of visual objects. In the categorical learning the visual information is learned independently as a visual concept. In the first stage of learning, the visual concept is learned whereas in the second stage the metalingual or phenomenological concept is learned. The visual concept is used to recognize object as a member of one of the categories of the visual object. The meaning of the object is obtained in the interpretational process based on the metalingual or phenomenal concept. Learned knowledge is stored as part of the conceptual structure of the categories that represent knowledge about the world. Categories have hierarchical structure; at the bottom of each category is the prototype of the category. In contrary to other methods of learning where only a small number of categories is learned (e.g. different fonts of the letter, mechanical tools) in the categorical learning objects that can belong to any category are learned as a part of the SUS knowledge. The proposed method can be applied in designing the new generation of robots that will be acting based on the results of the visual thinking (imagination).