Called auto-associative memories, they were also built out of simple “neurons” that connected to each other and fired when they reached a certain threshold. But they were interconnected differently, using lots of feedback. Instead of only passing information forward, as in a back propagation network, auto-associative memories fed the output of each neuron back into the input—sort of like calling yourself on the phone. This feedback loop led to some interesting features. When a pattern of activity was imposed on the artificial neurons, they formed a memory of this pattern. The auto-associative
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