Palo Alto Research Center View Institution's Website 1 article published in JoVE Neuroscience Creating Objects and Object Categories for Studying Perception and Perceptual Learning Karin Hauffen1,2,3, Eugene Bart4, Mark Brady5, Daniel Kersten6, Jay Hegdé1,2,3 1Brain and Behavior Discovery Institute, Georgia Health Sciences University, 2Vision Discovery Institute, Georgia Health Sciences University, 3Department of Opthalmology, Georgia Health Sciences University, 4Intelligent Systems Laboratory, Palo Alto Research Center, 5Pattern Recognition Systems, Palo Alto Research Center, 6Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota We describe a novel methodology for creating naturalistic 3-D objects and object categories with precisely defined feature variations. We use simulations of the biological processes of morphogenesis and phylogenesis to create novel, naturalistic virtual 3-D objects and object categories that can then be rendered as visual images or haptic objects.