When I look at your face, the sequence of input patterns I see is not fixed but is determined by my saccades. One time I might fixate in the order “eye eye nose mouth,” and a moment later fixate in the order “mouth eye nose eye.” The components of a face are a sequence. They are statistically related and tend to occur together in time, although the order may vary. If you perceive “face” while fixating on “nose,” the likely next patterns would be “eye” or “mouth” but not “pen” or “car.” Each region of cortex sees a stream of such patterns. If the patterns are related in such a way that the
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