Contextual Recurrent Convolutional Model for Robust Visual Learning
Authors: Siming Yan*, Bowen Xiao*, Yimeng Zhang, Tai Sing Lee
Keywords: contextual modulation, recurrent convolutional network, robust visual learning
TL;DR: we proposed a novel contextual recurrent convolutional network with robust property of visual learning 
Abstract: Feedforward convolutional neural network has achieved a great success in many computer vision tasks. While it validly imitates the hierarchical structure of biological visual system, it still lacks one essential architectural feature: contextual recurrent connections with feedback, which widely exists in biological visual system. In this work, we designed a Contextual Recurrent Convolutional Network with this feature embedded in a standard CNN structure. We found that such feedback connections could enable lower layers to ``rethink" about their representations given the top-down contextual information. We carefully studied the components of this network, and showed its robustness and superiority over feedforward baselines in such tasks as noise image classification, partially occluded object recognition and fine-grained image classification. We believed this work could be an important step to help bridge the gap between computer vision models and real biological visual system.