We Know It When We See It: What the Neurobiology of Vision Tells Us about How We Think

by Richard Masland

[Jeff Sexton]

Remarkable. This is one of those science books you love to find, no matter your particular interest in any field - a book written by seemingly one of the leaders in the field who has seemingly contributed much to the study of the issue at hand, yet who writes a book that we who barely know what the general subject is can understand the state of the field and the author's contributions to it. In this particular case, we are hearing about the state of vision and perception research from a cellular biologist who has himself won a couple of awards for research in this very field. Masland writes with enough precision that his peers can likely only quibble, if anything, and yet with enough generality that the rest of us can fairly easily follow the discussion. Even with a lack of the discussed diagrams in this particular ARC, the discussion was easily enough followed and the mild humor - if a bit geeky - was appreciated. Very much recommended.