Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-fqc5m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T12:53:30.069Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Visual control of orientation behaviour in the fly: Part I. A quantitative analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2009

Werner Reichardt
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für biologische Kybernetik D 7400 Tübingen (Germany)
Tomaso Poggio
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für biologische Kybernetik D 7400 Tübingen (Germany)

Abstract

An understanding of sensory information processing in the nervous system will probably require investigations with a variety of ‘model’ systems at different levels of complexity.

Our choice of a suitable model system was constrained by two conflicting requirements: on one hand the information processing properties of the system should be rather complex, on the other hand the system should be amenable to a quantitative analysis. In this sense the fly represents a compromise.

In these two papers we explore how optical information is processed by the fly's visual system. Our objective is to unravel the logical organization of the fly's visual system and its underlying functional and computational principles. Our approach is at a highly integrative level. There are different levels of analysing and ‘understanding’ complex systems, like a brain or a sophisticated computer.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)