The Salk Institute

Title: What the visual cortex computes

Abstract: As we move about the world, the image of objects on our retina undergoes affine transformations. In order to simplify cortical computations involved in object recognition, the symmetries of this transformation-- translation, rotation, and magnification-- must be preserved in the cortical operation. I will examine the consequences of the cortical representation of the affine symmetries and explain, through a review of how primary visual cortex encodes the visual world, the computational significance of these symmetries.