Neural Networks that Learn to Discriminate Similar Kanji Characters

Yoshihiro Morl Kazuhiko Yokosawa ATR Auditory and Visual Perception Research Laboratories 2-1-61 Shiromi Higashiku Osaka 540 Japan ABSTRACT A neural network is applied to the problem of recognizing Kanji characters. The recognition accuracy was higher than that of conventional methods. An analysis of connection weights showed that trained networks can discern the hierarchical structure of Kanji characters. This strategy of trained networks makes high recognition accuracy possible. Our results suggest that neural networks are very effective for Kanji character recognition. 1 INTRODUCTION Neural networks are applied to recognition tasks in many fields.