In this paper, we propose deep convolutional generative adversarial networks (DCGAN) that learn to produce a 'mental image' of the input image as internal representation of a certain category of input data distribution.   This mental image is what the DCGAN 'imagines' that the input image might look like under ideal conditions.   The mental image contains a version of the input that is iconic, without any peculiarities that do not contribute to the ideal representation of the input data distribution within a category. A DCGAN learns this association by training an encoder to capture salient features from the original image and a decoder to convert salient features into its associated mental image representation.   Our new approach, which we refer to as a Mental Image DCGAN (MIDCGAN), learns features that are useful for recognizing entire classes of objects, and that this in turn has the benefit of helping single and zero shot recognition.   We demonstrate our approach on object instance recognition and handwritten digit recognition tasks.
Object instance recognition with adversarial autoencoders was performed with a novel 'mental image' target that is canonical representation of the input image. The paper proposes a method to learn features for object recognition that is invariant to various transformations of the object, most notably object pose. This paper investigated the task of few shot recognition via a generated “mental image” as intermediate representation given the input image.