1. A method of providing artificial vision to a visually-impaired user implanted with a visual prosthesis, the method comprising: producing an input image signal in response to optical input representative of a scene; recognizing, by processing the input image signal, at least one item within the scene; creating an abstract representation of the scene wherein the abstract representation includes a symbolic representation of the at least one item; generating augmented image data wherein the augmented image data includes at least a portion of the input image signal and abstracted data corresponding to the abstract representation; and providing, to the visual prosthesis, a signal including pixel values wherein the pixel values are based upon the augmented image data.