Which brain processes enable humans to rapidly access their
personal knowledge" What happens if humans perceive either
familiar or unfamiliar objects" The answer to these questions
may lie in the direction of information flow transmitted between
specialized brain areas that together establish a dynamic
cortical network. This finding is reported in the latest issue
of the scientific journal PLoS ONE published on August 1st, 2007
[http://www.plosone.org/doi/pone.0000684]. Fruit or vegetable,
insect or bird, familiar or unfamiliar humans are used to
classify objects in the world around them and group them into
categories that have been formed and shaped constantly through
every day's experience. Categorization during visual perception
is exceptionally fast. Within just a fraction of a second we
effortlessly access object-based knowledge, in particular if
sufficient sensory information is available and the respective
category is distinctly characterized by object features. The
precise neural mechanisms behind thi