Visual illusions via neural dynamics: Wilson–Cowan-type models and the efficient representation principle

Abstract

We show that the Wilson–Cowan equations can reproduce a number of brightness and orientation-dependent illusions. Then we formally prove that there cannot be an energy functional that the Wilson–Cowan equations are minimizing, making them suboptimal with respect to the efficient representation principle. We thus propose a slight modification that is consistent with such principle and show that this provides a better reproduction of visual illusions than the original Wilson–Cowan formulation. We also consider the cortical extension of both models to deal with more complex orientation-dependent illusions.