The invention includes a method for recognizing shapes using a preprocessing mechanism that decomposes a source signal into basic components called atoms and a recognition mechanism that is based on the result of the decomposition performed by the preprocessing mechanism. In the method, the preprocessing mechanism includes at least one learning phase culminating in a set of signals called kernels, the kernels being adapted to minimize a cost function representing the capacity of the kernels to correctly reconstruct the signals from the database while guaranteeing a sparse decomposition of the source signal while using a database of signals representative of the source to be processed and a coding phase for decomposing the source signal into atoms, the atoms being generated by shifting of the kernels according to their index, each of the atoms being associated with a decomposition coefficient. The invention also includes a shape recognition system for implementing the method.