Neural Block-Slot Representations

In this paper, we propose a novel object-centric representation, called Block-Slot Representation. Unlike the conventional slot representation, the Block-Slot Representation provides concept-level disentanglement within a slot. A block-slot is constructed by composing a set of modular concept representations, called blocks, generated from a learned memory of abstract concept prototypes. We call this block-slot construction process Block-Slot Attention. Block-Slot Attention facilitates the emergence of abstract concept blocks within a slot such as color, position, and texture, without any supervision. This brings the benefits of disentanglement into slots and the representation becomes more interpretable. Similar to Slot Attention, this mechanism can be used as a drop-in module in any arbitrary neural architecture. In experiments, we show that our model disentangles object properties significantly better than the previous methods, including complex textured scenes. We also demonstrate the ability to compose novel scenes by composing slots at the block-level.