1. An apparatus for cognitive visual recognition, the apparatus comprising: a memory device comprising a list of candidate templates; an optical recording device configured to capture a digital query image and store the digital query image on the memory device; and a processor coupled to the memory device and configured to: retrieve the digital query image from the memory device, retrieve the list of candidate templates from the memory device, align each candidate template in the list of candidate templates with the digital query image, select a set of sample points of each candidate template in the list of candidate templates, measure a mutual saliency of the set of sample points, select a set of highest mutual saliency points from the set of sample points based on the mutual saliency, measure the similarity of each candidate template in the list of candidate templates to the query image at the set of highest mutual saliency points, and generate a list of highest similarity candidates based on the measured similarity.