The way you see things is divided into three different stages: early vision, middle vision, and high vision. Early vision determines the basic components of how an image looks, it's like a first impression. Then middle vision combines all the components/features that you notice in the image, into recognizable object groupings. This is useful when you need to classify the object you're seeing with your memories/prior experiences/knowledge. And higher-level vision is useful when the object has been classified, and your brain needs to further classify the image into a more specific grouping. For example, at mid-level vision we recognize that the animal is a dog. At higher-level vision, we recognize that the dog is familiar, i.e. Lassie.
