Abstract: Systems and methods for processing an input signal. In some embodiments, an input pattern in the input signal may be combined with each stored representation of a plurality of stored representations of at least one template to obtain a respective value for each stored representation, thereby obtaining a plurality of values. A representation for the input pattern may be constructed at least in part by analyzing a probability distribution associated with the plurality of values, and the representation for the input pattern may be provided to a recognizer programmed to process the representation for the input pattern and output at least one label for the representation for the input pattern. In some embodiments, the plurality of stored representations of the at least one template comprises a sequence of stored representations representing the at least one template undergoing a transformation that is not translation or scaling.