Abstract: The present invention relates to methods and systems for encoding and processing symbol structures using vector-derived transformation binding. The system comprises a plurality of binding subsystems that implement a vector-derived transformation binding operation, a plurality of unbinding subsystems that implement a vector-derived transformation unbinding operation, a plurality of cleanup subsystems that match noisy or corrupted vectors to their uncorrupted counterparts, and at least one input symbol representation that propagates activity through the binding subsystem, the unbinding subsystem, and the cleanup subsystem to produce high-dimensional vector representations of symbolic structures. The binding, the unbinding, and the cleanup subsystems are artificial neural networks implemented in network layers.