  Even the state-of-the-art deep learning models lack fundamental abilities
compared to humans. Multiple comparison paradigms have been proposed to explore
the distinctions between humans and deep learning. While most comparisons rely
on corruptions inspired by mathematical transformations, very few have bases on
human cognitive phenomena. In this study, we propose a novel corruption method
based on the abutting grating illusion, which is a visual phenomenon widely
discovered in both human and a wide range of animal species. The corruption
method destroys the gradient-defined boundaries and generates the perception of
illusory contours using line gratings abutting each other. We applied the
method on MNIST, high resolution MNIST, and silhouette object images. Various
deep learning models are tested on the corruption, including models trained
from scratch and 109 models pretrained with ImageNet or various data
augmentation techniques. Our results show that abutting grating corruption is
challenging even for state-of-the-art deep learning models because most models
are randomly guessing. We also discovered that the DeepAugment technique can
greatly improve robustness against abutting grating illusion. Visualisation of
early layers indicates that better performing models exhibit stronger
end-stopping property, which is consistent with neuroscience discoveries. To
validate the corruption method, 24 human subjects are involved to classify
samples of corrupted datasets.
