Oxyopia Abstract

April 12, 2007
Thursday, 4:00 PM
489 Minor Hall

Beau Lotto, PhD
Professor, University College, London
Host: Bruno Olshausen

Title

What Are Illusions and Why Do We See Them?

Abstract

Seeing colour is arguably the most basic of visual attributes. And yet, human perception of colour remains enigmatic largely because we frequently see the world "incorrectly" — in other words, because we see illusions. Thus, illusions are a key tool for investigating how and why we see what we do. In this talk, I will present our recent work on human, bumblebee and synthetic system vision, which provides evidence for the burgeoning hypothesis that illusions are caused by (i) the ambiguity of visual stimuli, and (ii) their empirical — and thus statistical — resolution. These studies (and this framework generally) also suggest a more formal, quantitative definition of illusion, as well as the basis for explaining the computational and mechanistic principles that underlie what we (and bees) see.

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