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Thus, it is crucial for animals to learn such feature combinations in spite of the fact that they may occur with variable intensity and occurrence frequency. Here, we present a novel unsupervised learning mechanism that is largely independent of these contingencies and allows neurons in a network to achieve specificity for different feature combinations. This is achieved by a novel correlation-based (Hebbian) learning rule, which allows for linear weight growth and which is combined with a mechanism for gradually reducing the learning rate as soon as the neuron\u2019s response becomes feature combination specific. In a set of control experiments, we show that other existing advanced learning rules cannot satisfactorily form ordered multi-feature representations. In addition, we show that networks, which use this type of learning always stabilize and converge to subsets of neurons with different feature-combination specificity. Neurons with this property may, thus, serve as an initial stage for the processing of ecologically relevant real world situations for an animal.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1011926","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,3,5]],"date-time":"2024-03-05T13:29:32Z","timestamp":1709645372000},"page":"e1011926","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pcbi.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Unsupervised learning of perceptual feature combinations"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"20","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2996-3612","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Minija","family":"Tamosiunaite","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Christian","family":"Tetzlaff","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Florentin","family":"W\u00f6rg\u00f6tter","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,3,5]]},"reference":[{"key":"pcbi.1011926.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Widrow B, Hoff ME. 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