Persistence of Vision Explained: How Movie Cameras Trick Our Brains

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The discussion centers on how film and video create the illusion of smooth motion despite displaying a limited number of frames per second, typically 24 to 30. It explains that the persistence of vision allows the brain to perceive continuous motion as each image is presented before the previous one fades completely. However, there is debate surrounding the validity of the persistence of vision theory, with some research suggesting it may be more of a psychological phenomenon than a straightforward visual effect. Factors such as lighting conditions and the brain's processing time also play a significant role in how motion is perceived. Ultimately, the experience of watching a movie can vary significantly from person to person.
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I know it is used to refer to the property of brain/eye that it takes them one-tenth of a second to process a new image after processing one but I just can't figure out how does a movie camera takes advantage of it and fool our brain so that it thinks that its waching a smooth motion though i know that most of them change 24 images a second. I've tried google but coundnt find anything convincing.
Thanks in advance for any help. :smile:
Abdullah
 
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A film projector flashes images at about 30 frames per sec. So each frame is on the screen for a period of time which is less then the persistence of the eye. Before 1 frame has faded a new one is present. Thus you get the feeling of smooth motion.
 
DeathKnight said:
change 24 images a second.
This only works well under dark light, with your pupils dialated and your retina getting just enough over-saturation that the persistance increases.

Under bright light, you can see 60hz flicker on a monitor, but part of this is that the persitance of the monitor is set for faster refresh rates.
 
here is a neat page with a simple explanation and demonstrative animations:
http://www.privatelessons.net/2d/sample/m01_03.html

however, it seems that the persistence of vision 'theory' may not be correct at all according to research done in the 1980s and that it is really a psychological phenomenon. here is a rather interesting (and surprising - to me at any rate) article on that matter:

it has in fact long been determined that the so-called 'persistence of vision' is also probably irrelevant to the effect of (1), a continuous, flickerless image.
PERSISTENCE OF VISION by Stephen Herbert
http://www.grand-illusions.com/percept.htm

it would seem that the commonly propagated explanation of illusion, may itself be an illusion!
 
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Given that the brain takes at least 50mS to process data and somtimes never it's hardly surprising that persistence should be more complex than retina saturation , it is often the case that what you remember is totally different from reallity --- so I guess you can say that everbodies movie is probably different antway.
Ray.
 
So I know that electrons are fundamental, there's no 'material' that makes them up, it's like talking about a colour itself rather than a car or a flower. Now protons and neutrons and quarks and whatever other stuff is there fundamentally, I want someone to kind of teach me these, I have a lot of questions that books might not give the answer in the way I understand. Thanks
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