Artificial ‘brain’ reveals why we can’t always believe our eyes
Leverhulme INT Early Career Fellow, Dr Reuben Rideaux, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Psychology A computer network closely modelled on part of the human brain is enabling new insights into the way our brains process moving images - and explains some perplexing optical illusions.
By using decades’ worth of data from human motion perception studies, Dr Reuben Rideaux and his research colleagues have trained an artificial neural network to estimate the speed and direction of image sequences.
The new system, called MotionNet, is designed to closely match the motion-processing structures inside a human brain. This has allowed the researchers to explore features of human visual processing that cannot be directly measured in the brain.
Their study, published in the Journal of Vision, uses the artificial system to describe how space and time information is combined in our brain to produce our perceptions, or misperceptions, of moving images.
A Great Recorded History
To mark the start of LGBTQ+ History Month, Leverhulme INT Early Career Fellow, Dr Diarmuid Hester reveals the people and places that have shaped queer life at Cambridge – and why he wanted to share their stories in his new Queer Cambridge Audio Trail, A Great Recorded History.
Cambridge has a rich and radical queer past. Over the years, the city has been an important hub of queer political organising and community-building for Cambridgeshire and the surrounding areas. The space of the city has likewise fed the imaginations of some of the most remarkable queer voices in British literature, including Edward Carpenter, E.M. Forster, and Ali Smith.
A Great Recorded History sets out to explore Cambridge’s queer past through its literature and politics. Featuring interviews with older members of the city’s LGBTQ+ community and excerpts from literature produced in the city, it gives listeners a chance to immerse themselves in the history of the place - and become part of it.