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Topic · Cognitive Neuroscience

Visual perception and processing mechanisms

Visual perception and processing mechanisms is a research topic within Cognitive Neuroscience. Science Explorer counts 58k research works in it since 1950. 9.8% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers explores the neural mechanisms underlying visual perception, including topics such as perceptual learning, cortical connectivity, sensory integration, retinotopic mapping, motion processing, binocular vision, neuronal adaptation, and psychophysical function.

  • Visual Perception
  • Neural Processing
  • Perceptual Learning
  • Cortical Connectivity
  • Sensory Integration
  • Retinotopic Mapping
  • Motion Processing
  • Binocular Vision
  • Neuronal Adaptation
  • Psychophysical Function
Research works
58k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
5.7k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.8%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
-12%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
United States
35% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Visual perception and processing mechanisms

Which countries lead Visual perception and processing mechanisms research?

By volume, the United States and China publish the most (1.6k and 749 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States 1.6k works
  2. 2 China 749 works
  3. 3 Germany 500 works
  4. 4 United Kingdom 423 works
  5. 5 Japan 398 works
  6. 6 Canada 270 works
  7. 7 France 206 works
  8. 8 Italy 186 works
  9. 9 Netherlands 160 works
  10. 10 Australia 157 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

United States: 34.8%China: 16.0%Germany: 10.7%United Kingdom: 9.0%6 others listed: 29.4%35%largest
United States1,626 · 34.8%China749 · 16.0%Germany500 · 10.7%United Kingdom423 · 9.0%6 others listed1,376 · 29.4%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Visual perception and processing mechanisms research?

By volume in 2022-now, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique publishes the most Visual perception and processing mechanisms research, followed by New York University and Johns Hopkins University.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 82 works
  2. 2 New York UniversityUnited States 74 works
  3. 3 Johns Hopkins UniversityUnited States 57 works
  4. 4 York UniversityCanada 53 works
  5. 5 University College LondonUnited Kingdom 47 works
  6. 6 Harvard UniversityUnited States 45 works
  7. 7 University of RochesterUnited States 44 works
  8. 8 Chinese Academy of SciencesChina 42 works
  9. 9 University of California, BerkeleyUnited States 41 works
  10. 10 Justus-Liebig-Universität GießenGermany 38 works

Who are the leading researchers in Visual perception and processing mechanisms?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Visual perception and processing mechanisms include Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey E. Hinton and Daniel J. Kahneman.

  1. 1 Yoshua Bengio Canada 476k citations
  2. 2 Geoffrey E. Hinton Canada 454k citations
  3. 3 Daniel J. Kahneman United States 395k citations
  4. 4 Jost Bruno Jonas Germany 350k citations
  5. 5 Karl John Friston United Kingdom 310k citations
  6. 6 John Q. Trojanowski United States 286k citations
  7. 7 Xiaogang Wang China 260k citations
  8. 8 Tien Yin Wong Singapore 237k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Visual perception and processing mechanisms?

The most cited paper in Visual perception and processing mechanisms is "Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat's visual cortex" (David Hunter Hubel, T. N. Wiesel, 1962), with 13,971 citations. Next come "Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain" (13,238) and "A feature-integration theory of attention" (12,545).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat's visual cortex David Hunter Hubel, T. N. Wiesel · The Journal of Physiology Open access 1962 13,971
2 Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain Maurizio Corbetta, Gordon L. Shulman · Nature reviews. Neuroscience Review Mar 2002 13,238
3 A feature-integration theory of attention Anne Treisman, Garry A. Gelade · Cognitive Psychology 1980 12,545
4 Cortical Surface-Based Analysis Anders Martin Dale, Bruce R. Fischl, Martin I. Sereno · NeuroImage Feb 1999 11,631
5 A model of saliency-based visual attention for rapid scene analysis Laurent Itti, Christof Koch, Ernst Niebur · IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence 1998 11,422
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Visual perception and processing mechanisms research done?

The largest centres of Visual perception and processing mechanisms research in 2022-now are Beijing (China), Tokyo (Japan), New York (United States) and London (United Kingdom). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Giessen, Reno and Tübingen.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 BeijingChina 178 works
  2. 2 TokyoJapan 139 works
  3. 3 New YorkUnited States 127 works
  4. 4 LondonUnited Kingdom 108 works
  5. 5 TorontoCanada 99 works
  6. 6 ParisFrance 89 works
  7. 7 ShanghaiChina 75 works
  8. 8 BaltimoreUnited States 60 works
  9. 9 BostonUnited States 60 works
  10. 10 AmsterdamNetherlands 58 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. GiessenDE · 44.1 works21×
  2. RenoUS · 26.4 works20×
  3. TübingenDE · 51.3 works17×
  4. RochesterUS · 51.7 works14×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Visual perception and processing mechanisms than the world average.

See Visual perception and processing mechanisms on the map

Where is the best place to study Visual perception and processing mechanisms?

Among universities, judged by research, Johns Hopkins University, New York University and University College London score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%mean 13.22%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →University College L…Johns Hopkins Univer…New York UniversityUniversity of Roches…
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Johns Hopkins UniversityUnited States 70.214.7%7.5×57 +25.4%
2New York UniversityUnited States 66.313.5%13.0×74 -9.0%
3University College LondonUnited Kingdom 64.617.1%5.9×47 -11.3%
4University of RochesterUnited States 60.08.6%19.8×44 +45.2%
5Harvard UniversityUnited States 56.515.1%2.9×45 -30.3%
6York UniversityCanada 55.56.9%30.0×53 +16.2%
7Justus-Liebig-Universität GießenGermany 54.88.8%35.3×38 +22.7%
8Yale UniversityUnited States 54.211.8%5.1×28 +5.7%
9Utrecht UniversityNetherlands 54.219.9%6.9×25 +1.9%
10University of TübingenGermany 53.615.8%16.7×36 -21.3%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Visual perception and processing mechanisms, country by country

Is Visual perception and processing mechanisms research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 12% lower than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2010.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Visual perception and processing mechanisms as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.023% in 2024.

still counting0.050%0.10%0.15%Visual perception and processing mechanisms0.022% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Visual perception and processing mechanisms over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Visual perception and processing mechanisms9.7% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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