One-time learning in a biologically-inspired Salience-affected Artificial Neural Network

Standard artificial neural networks (ANNs), loosely based on the structure of columns in the cortex, model key cognitive aspects of brain function such as learning and classification, but do not model the affective (emotional) aspects of brain function. However these are a key feature of the brain (the associated `ascending systems' have been hard-wired into the brain by evolutionary processes). These emotions are associated with memories when neuromodulators such as dopamine and noradrenaline affect entire patterns of synaptically activated neurons. Here we present a bio-inspired ANN architecture which we call a Salience-Affected Neural Network (SANN), which, at the same time as local network processing of task-specific information, includes non-local salience (significance) effects responding to an input salience signal. During pattern recognition, inputs similar to the salience-affected inputs in the training data will produce reverse salience signals corresponding to those experienced when the memories were laid down. In addition, training with salience affects the weights of connections between nodes, and improves the overall accuracy of a classification of images similar to the salience-tagged input after just a single iteration of training. Note that we are not aiming to present an accurate model of the biological salience system; rather we present an artificial neural network inspired by those biological systems in the human brain, that has unique strengths.