Vision Study
My problem is that I personally cannot follow moving objects very well. I think it comes from closing my eyes when something came at me fast (reflexes) when I was young. How the eyes and brain work is still being studied. An article I saw was "The Myth of Persistence of Vision Revisited," Journal of Film and Video, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Spring 1993). But I could not understand it. Here are the notes - The article is copyrighted.
NOTES
[1] A sampling of recent texts that perpetuate the notion of persistence of vision are:
• Steven Bernstein, The Technique of Film Production (Boston: Focal Press, 1988) 3
("retention of image").
• Thomas W. Bohn and Richard L. Stromgren, Light and Shadows, 3rd ed. (Mountain
View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Co., 1987) 6.
• Steven E. Browne, Film Video Terms and Concepts (Boston: Focal Press, 1992)
132.
• David A. Cook, A History of Narrative Film, 2nd ed. (N.Y.: W.W. Norton & Co., 1990) 1.
• Louis Gianetti and Scott Eyeman, Flashback: A Brief History of Film (Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1991)2.
• Gorham Kindem, The Moving Image (London: Scott Foresman, 1987) 16.
• Bruce Kawin, How Movies Work (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992) 48,
550.
• Lynne S. Gross and Larry W. Ward, Electronic Moviemaking (Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth Publishing Co.,1991) 81.
• Gerald Mast and Marshall Cohen, A Short History of the Movies, 4th ed. (NY:
Macmillan, 1986) 9-11, 28.
• James Monaco, How to Read a Film (N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1981) 2.
• Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook (N.Y.: New American
Library, 1984) 2
[2] For an explanation of the "phi phenomenon" see Lloyd Kaufman, Sight and Mind:
An Introduction to Visual Perception (NY: Oxford University Press, 1974) 368.
[3] Portions of this historical survey were presented in Joseph and Barbara Anderson,
"Motion Perception in Motion Pictures," in Teresa DeLauretis and Stephen Heath (eds.),
The Cinematic Apparatus (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980): 76-95.
[4] See, for example, Andre Bazin, Qu'est-ce que le cinema? 4 vols. (Paris: Cerf, 1958-
62); trans (selection) What is Cinema? 2 vols. (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1967 and 1971); George Sadoul, Histoire generale du cinema (Paris: Denoel, 1948); and
George Potonniee, Les Origines du cinematographe (Paris: P. Montel, 1928).
[5] Joseph A. Plateau, as quoted in Georges Sadoul, Histoire generale du Cinema, Vol.
1, p. 25:
Si plusieurs objets differant entre eux graduellement de forme et de position se montrent
successivement devant l'oeil pendant des intervalles tres courts et suffisamment
rapproches, les impressions qu'ils produisent sur la retine se lieront entre elles sans se
confondre, et l'on croira voir un seul objet changeant graduellement de forme et de
position.
[6] For discussion of work done by Rudiger von der Heydt and Esther Peterhans on the
response of cells in V1 and V2 to illusory contours, see Zeki 76.
[7] In the motion picture, a series of rapidly presented, closely spaced images, the
duration of each image (34.72 ms with two interruptions of 6.95 ms each), the interval
between images or interstimulus interval (6.95 ms), and the spatial displacement from
one frame to the next (generally less than 15' of visual arc), fall well within the
parameters of short-range apparent motion.