Recognition of hierarchically encoded images by technical and biological systems.

All the contours and regions of objects can be mapped to code-trees of the Hierarchical Structure Code (HSC). Invariant features like structure classes, shape descriptions, or relations between structures and components may be easily extracted from the HSC. HSC-based pattern recognition provides a straightforward transition between the signal-space of the image and the space of its symbolic representation. Physiological data are well predicted and do not exclude an implementation of an HSC-based system within the visual cortex.