Abstract
Geometric illusions closely relate to the excellent functions of the human visual system. The authors formerly analyzed several typical illusions by a lateral inhibition model assuming that the geometric illusions originated from interactions of neuronal activities in the visual system.
In this paper, we have proposed a new model to interpret illusions on the basis of the assumption that the illusions were caused by multiple spatial frequency channels, the existence of which has been proposed in both physiological and psychological visual science. Taking ‘Helmholtz-Hering illusion’ as an example, we analyzed the kinds of channel that produced illusions.
It is shown that the new model is effective to interpret the Helmholtz-Hering illusion, and that this illusion originates mainly from the channels having 1-octave bandwidth and the central frequency of about half of the fundamental frequency of the illusional figure. It will be possible to analyze more complex illusions by this model in near future.
