The grandmother cell is a hypothetical neuron that represents a complex but specific concept or object. It activates when a person "sees, hears, or otherwise sensibly discriminates" a specific entity, such as his or her grandmother. The term was coined around 1969 by Jerry Lettvin. A similar concept was proposed two years earlier by Jerzy Konorski of a gnostic neuron.
Read more about Grandmother Cell: Sparseness Vs Distributed Respresentations, Pontifical Cells
Famous quotes containing the words grandmother and/or cell:
“The suburban housewife—she was the dream image of the young American women and the envy, it was said, of women all over the world. The American housewife—freed by science and labor-saving appliances from the drudgery, the dangers of childbirth, and the illnesses of her grandmother ... had found true feminine fulfilment.”
—Betty Friedan (b. 1921)
“Women have no wilderness in them,
They are provident instead,
Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts
To eat dusty bread.”
—Louise Bogan (1897–1970)