Brain and Visual Perception

This is the story of a hugely successful and enjoyable 25-year collaboration between two scientists who set out to learn how the brain deals with the signals it receives from the two eyes. Their work opened up a new area of brain research that led to their receiving the Nobel Prize in 1981. The book contains their major papers from 1959 to 1981, each preceded and followed by comments telling how and why the authors went about the study, how the work was received, and what has happened since. It begins with short autobiographies of both men, and describes the state of the field when they started. It is intended not only for neurobiologists, but for anyone interested in how the brain works-biologists, psychologists, philosophers, physicists, historians of science, and students at all levels from high school to graduate level.

The authors were both awarded the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. David H. Hubel is John Franklin Enders University Professor of Neurobiology, Emeritus, at Harvard Medical School. Torsten N. Wiesel is Director of the Shelby White and Leon Levy Center for Mind, Brain and Behavior and President Emeritus of Rockefeller University. He is also Secretary General of the Human Frontier Science Program and President of the International Brain Research Organization.