Recent advances in the study of visual cognition and consciousness have dealt primarily with steady-state properties of visual processing, with little attention to its dynamic aspects. The First Half Second brings together for the first time the latest research on the dynamics of conscious and unconscious processing of visual information, examining the time-course of visual processes from the moment a stimulus is presented until it registers in a behavioral response or in consciousness a few hundred milliseconds later. The contributors analyze this "first half second" of visual processing-known as its microgenesis-from a variety of perspectives, including neuroscience, neuropsychology, psychophysics, psychology, and neural network modeling.