Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, 2007.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Page 95 blank.Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-94).Any given object in the world can cast an effectively infinite number of different images onto the retina, depending on its position relative to the viewer, the configuration of light sources, and the presence of other objects in the visual field. In spite of this, primates can robustly recognize a multitude of objects in a fraction of a second, with no apparent effort. The computational mechanisms underlying these amazing abilities are poorly understood. This thesis presents a collection of work from human psychophysics, monkey electrophysiology, and computational modelling in an effort to reverse-engineer the key computational components that enable this amazing ability in the primate visual system.by David Daniel Cox.Ph.D.