In this opinion essay, I address the perennial binding problem, that is to say of how independently processed visual attributes such as form, colour and motion are brought together to give us a unified and holistic picture of the visual world. A solution to this central issue in neurobiology remains as elusive as ever. No one knows today how it is implemented. The issue is not a new one and, though discussed most commonly in the context of the visual brain, it is not unique to it either. Karl Lashley summarized it well years ago when he wrote that a critical problem for brain studies is to understand how “the specialized areas of the cerebral cortex interact to provide the integration evident in thought and behaviour” (Lashley, 1931).

中文翻译：

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视觉皮层的“多重”细胞和结合问题的时序谜团

在这篇观点文章中，我讨论了常年性的绑定问题，即如何将独立处理的视觉属性（如形式，颜色和运动）结合在一起，从而为我们提供视觉世界的统一而完整的图像。对于神经生物学这个中心问题的解决方案仍然像以往一样难以捉摸。今天没人知道它是如何实现的。这个问题不是一个新问题，尽管在视觉大脑的背景下进行了最普遍的讨论，但它也不是唯一的。卡尔·拉什利（Karl Lashley）早在几年前就总结了这一观点，当时他写道，脑研究的关键问题是了解“大脑皮层的特殊区域如何相互作用以提供思想和行为上明显的整合”（拉什利，1931年）。