ASYMPTOTICALLY STABLE MULTI-VALUED MANY-TO-MANY ASSOCIATIVE MEMORY NEURAL NETWORK AND ITS APPLICATION IN IMAGE RETRIEVAL

Abstract

As an important artificial neural network, associative memory model can be employed to mimic human thinking and machine intelligence. In this paper, first, a multi-valued many-to-many Gaussian associative memory model (M 3 GAM) is proposed by introducing the Gaussian unidirectional associative mem- ory model (GUAM) and Gaussian bidirectional associative memory model (GBAM) into Hattori et al's multi-module associative memory model ((MMA) 2 ). Second, the M 3 GAM's asymptotical stability is proved theoretically in both synchronous and asynchronous update modes, which ensures that the stored patterns become the M 3 GAM's stable points. Third, by substituting the general similarity metric for the negative squared Euclidean distance in M 3 GAM, the generalized multi- valued many-to-many Gaussian associative memory model (GM 3 GAM) is pre- sented, which makes the M 3 GAM become its special case. Finally, we investigate the M 3 GAM's application in association-based image retrieval, and the computer simulation results verify the M 3 GAM's robust performance.