Thinking fast: a bionic approach to soft computing

Abstract Evolution has enabled living organisms to respond to sensory input very fast in order to safeguard their chances of survival. This ability is largely based on the classification of perceptions into categories and their collective processing in associative structures. These associative structures, in turn, have a remarkable similarity to the biological neural networks which perform them. The author has chosen this natural way of thinking fast as a model for an innovative bionic approach to soft computing.