In a new MIT study, a computer model designed to mimic the way the brain itself processes visual information performs as well as humans do on rapid categorization tasks.

The model even tends to make similar errors as humans, possibly because it so closely follows the organization of the brain’s visual system.

“We created a model that takes into account a host of quantitative anatomical and physiological data about visual cortex and tries to simulate what happens in the first 100 milliseconds or so after we see an object,” explained senior author Tomaso Poggio of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. “This is the first time a model has been able to reproduce human behavior on that kind of task.”