Properties of Sparse Distributed Representations and their Application to Hierarchical Temporal Memory

Understand

Empirical evidence demonstrates that every region of the neocortex represents information using sparse activity patterns.

• This paper examines Sparse Distributed Representations (SDRs), the primary information representation strategy in Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) systems and the neocortex.
• We derive a number of properties that are core to scaling, robustness, and generalization.
• We use the theory to provide practical guidelines and illustrate the power of SDRs as the basis of HTM.