[tc]

Geoffrey Hinton described doing this back in 2012. He noted that it learned more slowly but generalized better, he described how this is nearly isomorphic with dropout, and he presented a biological motivation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DleXA5ADG78#t=45m32s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DleXA5ADG78#t=4m24s