Cover legend: Depiction of sequential image processing performed by the visual system when an observer views an external object (water lily, bottom right). The internal representation of the image, shown in the top four panels, evolves over time. In the first panel, the image appears blurred because only coarse features (low spatial frequencies) are available. In the subsequent panels, the images become progressively clearer as more fine details (high spatial frequencies) are analyzed. The final image, occurring around 50 ms after the first, is a clear representation of the water lily. Our results show that this coarse-to-fine processing occurs in early visual pathways. For more information, see the article by Allen and Freeman in this issue (pages 11763–11774).