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.