In the search for 'deep patterns' or patterns that may be hardwired in the brain, I've come across the concept of 'phosphenes' (Robert G. Bednarik). Phosphenes are created through electrical stimulation, pressure on the eyeball, a blow to the head or certain hallucinogens.
Phosphene forms are the fifteen known standard form constants of phosphenes -- and most of these are found in the earliest engravings and petroglyphs.
There are concentric circles, oblong eye shapes, parallel horizontal and vertical lines, adjacent wavy lines, spirals, grids, dot patterns in a grid/matrix arrangement, screens or meshes, radiating star shapes, stars enclosed within a circled, irregular closed shapes, the shape of a hand and a burst shape like a spray of grass.
Remarkable!
Here are some interesting quotes from research papers:
"There is a good reason why our visual system finds repeated marks such as parallel lines, geometric shapes and certain patterns appealing. It is because they resonate with patterns already integral to the visual cortex, they are related to the way its neurons process visual input. Artistic 'primitive' motifs are of interest to us not because they reflect the properties of the external world, but because they stimulate properties of the visual system."Bednarik (1984)
"It is thought that features are detected by cortical cells forming the bottom layer of a hierarchy of cells that respond progressively to increasingly abstract geometric features" (Barlow 1972).
Hodgson deduces that cells in higher layers could respond to simple geometric patterns (Livingstone and Hubel 1995).
The main references for the above quotes are from research papers by Robert G. Bednarick and Derek Hodgson about Phosphene Theory (Bednarik 1984, 1987, 1990; Hodgson 2000).
While this may be presumptive, I think it would be a good idea -- if one were to be developing a machine that simulates the workings of the neocortex -- to prime this machine with some phosphene motifs, rather than making it learn everything from scratch.
