grandmother cells
...upport the much more plausible view that IT cells are members of ensembles for population coding. One problem with the view that IT neurons code for unitary perceptions is that there are probably more distinguishable percepts than there are available cells (Gazz;interview in Gazz). Grandmother cells do not achieve the kind of necessary representation that classifies similar things together (eg. each view of one’s grandmother). As cells that respond to specific percepts, grandmother cells do not explain the perception of novel objects or the detection of relatedness among stimuli (Gazz; Gross Vis. Stim.) In addition, a visual system comprised of grandmother cells would be extremely vulnerable. If one’s grandmother cell died, then a sudden loss of one’s grandmother would be experienced (Gazz). _____ In addition to the various problems associated with the concept of the grandmother cell, the evidence does not generally support such a view. While there is evidence for the existence of cells that respond to faces, there is no support for the notion that these cells are narrowly selective for one particular face (Gross, vis stim; Desimone). [[ex. of experiments]] If IT neurons are not narrowly selective for particular faces, then how do we recognize our grandmother? The idea of ensemble coding explains this phenom...