We approach the themes "computing with chaos" and "reservoir computing" in a unified setting. Different neural architectures are mentioned which display chaotic as well as reservoir properties. The architectures share a common topology of close-neighbor connections which supports different types of spatiotemporal dynamics in continuous time. We bring up the role of spatiotemporal structure and associated symmetries in reservoir-mediated pattern processing. Such type of computing is somewhat

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... erent from most other examples of reservoir computing. * The author acknowledges the partial support of Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia and EU FEDER via the Center for Logic and Computation and the project ConTComp (POCTI/MAT/45978/2002), and also via the project PDCT/MAT/57976/2004. Research performed under the scope of project RealNComp (PTDC/MAT/76287/2006).