Author summary We categorize visual scenes rapidly and effortlessly, but still have little insight into the neural processing stages that enable this feat. In a parallel development, deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been developed that perform visual categorization with human-like accuracy. We hypothesized that the stages of processing in a CNN may parallel the stages of processing in the human brain. We found that this is indeed the case, with early brain signals best explained by early stages of the CNN and later brain signals explained by later CNN layers. We also found that category-specific information seems to first emerge in sensory cortex and is then rapidly fed up to frontal areas. The similarities between biological brains and artificial neural networks provide neuroscientists with the opportunity to better understand the process of categorization by studying the artificial systems.
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