Abstract: A pattern recognition method that determines the category of an unknown pattern. The category is one of a set of categories corresponding to a set of known patterns. A subcategory-level recognition dictionary is provided that stores reference information for each one of plural subcategories obtained by partitioning the categories constituting the category set. A pattern signal respresenting the unknown pattern is received (12) and is processed to extract a feature vector from it. The reference information of one subcategory of each category in the recognition dictionary is selected (14, 16) from the recognition dictionary in response to the feature vector. Finally, a distance between the feature vector and the reference information of the subcategory of each category selected in the selected in the selecting step is determined (18) to determine the category of the unknown pattern.