Pattern Recognition with Rejection: Application to Handwritten Digits

The paper considers rejecting option in pattern recognition problem. Studied are native and foreign elements in a multi-class pattern recognition. Native elements are those included in recognized classes, they are known at the stage of classifier design. Foreign elements do not belong to recognized classes. Usually foreign elements are not known when classifier is designed. If foreign elements are classified to recognized classes, recognition quality is deteriorated. So then, they are classified to native classes, if they are not rejected. In such the case, recognition quality is deteriorated. Therefore, they should be rejected by a classifier, i.e. not classified to any class. Several attempts to rejection of foreign elements are investigated in this study.