The ability to rapidly identify symmetry and anti-symmetry is an essential attribute of intelligence. Symmetry perception is a central process in human vision and may be key to human 3D visualization. While previous work in understanding neuron symmetry perception has concentrated on the neuron as an integrator, the invention provides the coincidence detecting property of the spiking neuron can be used to reveal symmetry density in spatial data. A synchronized symmetry-identifying spiking artificial neural network enables layering and feedback in the network. The network of the invention can identify symmetry density between sets of data and present a digital logic implementation demonstrating an 8×8 leaky-integrate-and-fire symmetry detector in a field-programmable gate array. The efficiency of spiking neural networks can be harnessed to rapidly identify symmetry in spatial data with applications in image processing, 3D computer vision, and robotics.