Van Essen DC, Olshausen B, Anderson CH, Gallant JL (1991). Pattern recognition,
attention, and information bottlenecks in the primate visual system. In:
Proc.
SPIE Conf. on Visual Information Processing: From Neurons to Chips, 1473,
p. 17-28.
The primate visual system has evolved impressive capabilities for recognizing
complex patterns in natural images. This process involves many stages of
analysis and a variety of information processing strategies. Here, we concentrate
on the importance of "information bottlenecks," which restrict the amount
of information that can be handled at different stages of analysis. We
believe these steps are crucial for reducing the overwhelming computational
complexity associated with recognizing countless objects from arbitrary
viewing angles, distances, and perspectives. The process of directed visual
attention is an especially important information bottleneck because of
its flexibility in determining how information is routed to high-level
pattern recognition centers.