"The usual metaphor for artificial neural networks is electrical circuits and nodes connected by wires, " said Dr Husbands.

BBC: Robot brains become more human

Artificial neural networks operate in a similar fashion, altering the strengths of connections between different parts of a program in response to experience, so as to achieve the desired result.

ECONOMIST: The learning home

Although the artificial neural networks used in the research are much less complex than the human visual system, this simplicity helped the researchers to identify and further understand what they believe is a fundamental principle behind why we see illusion: the statistics of our past visual experiences.

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