Good stuff. Brings to mind classic Hubel & Wiesel work on receptive field structure of single neurons in the visual system:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw5PKV9Rj3o&feature=relat...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDJSnJ2cIFc

http://hubel.med.harvard.edu/b18.htm

[edit: Wiesel, not Weisel]