Our work aims to understand how the brain makes sense of the constant barrage of sensory information that is picked up by our peripheral senses. By combining behavioral and neurophysiological studies, we ask how the activity of single neurons working together in the brain empowers the visual system to explore complex environments and recognize objects, scenes, and actions. A central question we study is how experience affects these processes. By understanding these mechanisms, we hope to provide avenues by which lost function may be restored and by which machines may be endowed with some of these remarkable abilities.