TITLE: What Are Illusions and Why Do We See Them?
SPEAKER: David Corney (Institute of Ophthalmology, UCL)

ABSTRACT:

The human visual system is very robust: we can easily identify surface properties, even under varying illumination. Yet optical illusions seem to show the system sometimes fails to perceive the world "accurately". I will argue that the purpose of vision is *not* to accurately measure the world, but rather to allow the brain to produce useful behaviour. I will discuss recent work using artificial neural networks to model lightness constancy and colour constancy, as found in humans and other animals, and show that these networks also 'see' illusions as we do.