A method for associating a complex component operator to each component of an input pattern having a plurality of components in the process of evaluating a final distance between said input pattern and prototypes stored in neurons of an artificial neural network using a distance norm, wherein said complex component operator comprises a function and at least one parameter attached thereto, said method comprising the steps of:
- a) resetting the final distance for each neuron;
- b) pointing the address corresponding to said component;
- c) presenting the input pattern component corresponding to that address to each neuron;
- d) getting the complex component operator corresponding to that address;
- e) decoding the complex component operator to extract the function and processing the at least one parameter according to the function;
- f) calculating an elementary distance using the decoded function for each neuron;
- g) conditionally updating the final distance by the elementary distance using the distance norm for each neuron;
- and,
- h) repeating steps b) to g) until all said plurality of components have been processed allowing thereby the evaluation of the final distance for each neuron.