“everything is there before you discover it”*

Object detection and basic-level categorization: sometimes you know it is there before you know what it is.

A tight temporal coupling between object detection (is an object there?) and object categorization (what kind of object is it?) has recently been reported (Grill-Spector & Kanwisher, 2005), suggesting that image segmentation into different objects and categorization of those objects at the basic level may be the very same mechanism. In the present work, we decoupled the time course of detection...

Visual recognition: as soon as you know it is there, you know what it is.

What is the sequence of processing steps involved in visual object recognition? We varied the exposure duration of natural images and measured subjects' performance on three different tasks, each designed to tap a different candidate component process of object recognition. For each exposure duration, accuracy was lower and reaction time longer on a within-category identification task (e.g., di...

To everything there is a season.

For everything there is a time.

To everything there is a season?

In the Old Testament, an ancient Hebrew philosopher wrote “to everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born; a time to die” (Ecclesiastes 3: 1–2). Until recently, humans had little choice but to accept this wisdom and the given aspects of life that lay beyond their control. As Benjamin Franklin once remarked, there is “nothing...certain except death and ...