A method of processing data within a convolutional attention recurrent neural network (RNN) includes generating a current multi-dimensional attention map. The current multi-dimensional attention map indicates areas of interest in a first frame from a sequence of spatio-temporal data. The method further includes receiving a multi-dimensional feature map. The method also includes convolving the current multi-dimensional attention map and the multi-dimensional feature map to obtain a multi-dimensional hidden state and a next multi-dimensional attention map. The method identifies a class of interest in the first frame based on the multi-dimensional hidden state and training data.