In a recent article [1], Scholte and de Haan challenge the prevailing view by claiming that the degree of specialization of visual brain areas is limited. They also suggest that neuronal codes for object features are so broadly distributed across brain regions that binding problems rarely occur. Their claims partly stem from insights into deep neural networks. The underlying idea is that if neurons explicitly represent feature conjunctions (‘base-groupings’ [2]), binding issues rarely occur. Here, we argue that Scholte and de Haan underestimate both the degree of specialization of brain regions and the necessity of binding mechanisms.
