A picture is worth thousands of trials: rendering the use of visual information from spiking neurons to recognition

Mastery of technique is so important that ( ... ) it may be stated that the greatest discoveries are in the hands of the finest and most knowledgeable experts on one or more of the analytical methods. -(Santiago Ramón y Cajal, 1897) If what Ramón y Cajal (1999) suggested at the end of the 19th century still applies today— and we certainly believe that it does—researchers in vision science are now facing tremen- dously exciting times. Techniques to measure the activity of the brain—especially the visual brain—are now more numerous, accessible and affordable than ever. Brain imaging tech- niques such as functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), electroencephalography (EEG), event related potential (ERP), optical imagery, mag- netoencephalography (MEG), tools to induce localized and transient disruptions in the normal functioning of the brain like transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and accurate video eye-trackers have now joined methods of single-cell recording, psychophysics, visual cogni- tion and neuropsychology in the toolbox of the vision scientist. In contrast to unquestionable progress in measurement techniques, up until recently little progress had been made to relate brain and behavioral measurements to the properties of the distal stimuli eliciting these responses. But times are changing: Vision science is undergoing a small-scale revolution that is the topic of this special issue of Cognitive Science. New tools1 are being developed to relate stimulus properties with behavioral and brain events, and ascribe a functional role to the latter.