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 tomograph