for intelligence itself. There is little
doubt that even a partial solution to the
question of which computations are
performed by the visual cortex would
be a major breakthrough in computational neuroscience and more broadly
in neuroscience. It would begin to explain one of the most amazing abilities of the brain and open doors to
other aspects of intelligence (such as
language and planning). It would also
bridge the gap between neurobiology
and the various information sciences,
making it possible to develop computer algorithms that follow the in-formation-processing principles used
by biological organisms and honed by
natural evolution.
The past 60 years of experimental
work in visual neuroscience has gen-
erated a large and rapidly increasing
amount of data. Today’s quantitative
models bridge several levels of under-
standing, from biophysics to physiol-
ogy to behavior. Some of these models
compete with state-of-the-art comput-
er-vision systems and are close to hu-
man-level performance for specific vi-
sual tasks.