edited by C Taddei-Ferretti (Istituto di Cibernetica, CNR, Arco Felice, Napoli, Italy)

Visual cognition is an important area of biocybernetics. It ranges from the filtering processes of early vision to the structural and functional organization of the visual centres, as well as, in higher animals, to the neuronal plasticity, the decision-making rules, the effect of noise, the role of attention, the ambiguity of patterns, and the time dimension. All these factors contribute to the cognitive interpretation of visual sensation that takes place in visual perception. A side field is machine vision, in which the signal processing known from animal vision is applied to the mobile robots responding to light stimulation.

• In Memory of E R Caianiello:
  • Eduardo R Caianiello: In Memoriam (M Marinaro)
  • Caianiello's Equations and Cognitive Processes (E Burattini)
• Integrative Mechanisms of Vision:
  • Processing Visual Information in Vertebrate Retinae (S Vallerga.)
  • Structural and Functional Organisation of the Cephalopod Retina (J Patterson)
  • Visual Sensation of Self-Motions in the Blowfly Calliphora (R Hengstenberg et al.)
• Visual Perception and Cognitive Processes:
  • Neuronal Response Plasticity (S Hochstein & V Yakovlev)
  • Interhemispheric Transfer of Visual Information: A Cross-Talk Between the Two Cerebral Hemispheres (A Fiorentini & N Berardi)
  • Recent Results in Emergent Visual Segmentation (E Mingolla)
• (From Animal Vision to) Machine Vision:
  • View-Based Navigation and Cognitive Maps in Man and Machine (H A Mallot)
  • Shape Primitives from Visual Patterns (L P Cordella)
  • From Biocybernetics to Bionics: On Visually-Guided Navigation in Animals and Machines (N Franceschini et al.)
  • and other papers