Categorization is ‘baked’ into the brain

Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Published online: 13 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41583-026-01036-2 Categorization, the grouping of objects, living organisms, actions or events into equivalence clusters, is fundamental to adaptive behaviour. In this Perspective, Barrett and Miller discuss evidence that, rather that being the end stage of perception, categorization occurs throughout signal processing and is a core computational strategy of the brain.