How fast is the human eye?

[John Allen]

Not blaming you as much as reminding people. I am amazed how easy it is for opinion to turn into fact. Science is itself very limited. Currently less than 20% of all medicine has any scientific basis behind it according the US GAO. Point is most of what doctors do is no better or worse than any other treatment, yet we believe the dogma of allopathic medicine as if fact, and many times even when what a doctor tells us goes against how we feel. Watch the news and see such stories presented as 'wine helps prevent heart attacks', yet the science in no way says that is true, but everyone believes it, just as they say high cholesterol causes heart attacks even though there isn't a shred of science to show that to be true. Amazing how fact is born and feeds more myth that becomes dogma. Makes lots of money for some.

 

I totally agree. It's very sad really.

[Sasha Riu]

Human vision is ANALOG

:)

 

No sampling!

 

The reason we don't mind flickering is the lazyness and exhaustion of our "mashinery" thanks to "retinal persistance"...

We get used to certain rhythm and don't pay attention for occasion distrackts (similar to David's note about Murch's blinking).

 

Accurate perception is more the matter of training than anything else:

 

I can notice certain details in the last/first frame of the cut between the two shoots, which most of the regular viewers don't (ex:first frame when camera starts to move, person starts to blink or starts moving the hands, head, legs), because of my editing background (I am the one that performs the same trick so of cource I will notice when somebody else does it too :) just like members of "primitive" tribes can spot the animal in the plains of Africa (that they feed on) where most of us see only grass

:)

 

Just like eskimos (apparanty, I don't know if it's true) can distinguish easily, 9 types of snow and 20 differents white colors!

 

Training!

 

:)

[Sasha Riu]

Appendixx:

 

 

Therefore, I don't know if it's possible to determine the spped of our eyes since they are in fact part of the brain (no mashine to measure that accuretly yet;if vver!!!), and work in a sort of variable frame rate mode!

:)

 

 

 

P.S. sorry for double post but the editor didn't allowed me the changes!

?

[Walter Graff]

Just like eskimos (apparanty, I don't know if it's true) can distinguish easily, 9 types of snow and 20 differents white colors!

 

:)

 

 

Yep, it's a myth.

[Sasha Riu]

Yep, it's a myth.

 

 

But the nice one !!!

 

:)

 

 

Ah, me romantic...

 

:)

[Paul Bruening]

With so much deregulation of industries that has occurred over the last few presidential regimes, is there any monitoring of subliminal content any more in the USA? I was under the impression that our content was commonly imbedded with information as digitally woven watermarks and similar techniques. Is that just urban legend, pop-myth stuff or valid? Certainly, as you watch content unusual associations occur. Yet, differentiating normal association from subliminal content association is quite difficult to detect.

[David Rakoczy]

How fast is the human eye you ask... too slow in my opinion.. I get stuff in my eye all the time... :blink:

[Edgar Dubrovskiy]

The only addition I would make [........]

 

That's real interesting, man!

Thanks!

[Walter Graff]

With so much deregulation of industries that has occurred over the last few presidential regimes, is there any monitoring of subliminal content any more in the USA? I was under the impression that our content was commonly imbedded with information as digitally woven watermarks and similar techniques. Is that just urban legend, pop-myth stuff or valid? Certainly, as you watch content unusual associations occur. Yet, differentiating normal association from subliminal content association is quite difficult to detect.

 

No one ever monitored subliminal advertising in the US. As the few examples I gave along with others done over the years show, there is usually a more deliberate form done, an assumption that something is (backwards record albums). But fear not, all the research shows that much of what one could do on TV in the form of subliminal advertising has absolutely no effect on you. None of the major agencies I've worked with every had a subliminal ad lab in the back room. It's more myth than reality. It's myth that captures or imagination more than reality driven by the notion that the prospect of something flashing on a screen for an instant could drive us to do something we have no control over. It scares people. It's the reason why the 50's experiment raised feathers. It was the cold war and we were already terrified that something was going to invade us. Often our minds make things far worse than they ever could be. I work with a number of groups that do all sorts of fun stuff regarding trying to talk to your reptilian brain. But none of it will change your life. Maybe make you remember a product, but never make you want something you don't want or need.

 

So have another sip of that Coke. Then go out and buy Pringles. :)

[Paul Bruening]

No one ever monitored subliminal advertising in the US. As the few examples I gave along with others done over the years show, there is usually a more deliberate form done, an assumption that something is (backwards record albums). But fear not, all the research shows that much of what one could do on TV in the form of subliminal advertising has absolutely no effect on you. None of the major agencies I've worked with every had a subliminal ad lab in the back room. It's more myth than reality. It's myth that captures or imagination more than reality driven by the notion that the prospect of something flashing on a screen for an instant could drive us to do something we have no control over. It scares people. It's the reason why the 50's experiment raised feathers. It was the cold war and we were already terrified that something was going to invade us. Often our minds make things far worse than they ever could be. I work with a number of groups that do all sorts of fun stuff regarding trying to talk to your reptilian brain. But none of it will change your life. Maybe make you remember a product, but never make you want something you don't want or need.

 

So have another sip of that Coke. Then go out and buy Pringles. :)

 

 

With so much fear of everyone else on the planet, you're saying that no monitoring of content occurs. Are you confident that no agencies such as the NSA are monitoring content for viable national security reasons?

[Walter Graff]

With so much fear of everyone else on the planet, you're saying that no monitoring of content occurs. Are you confident that no agencies such as the NSA are monitoring content for viable national security reasons?

 

Here's a fact based on extensive recearch. Flashing frames on a TV screen has no effect on anyone. If someone wants to monitor it, good luck. It's a waste of time.

[Daniel Porto]

The only addition I would make is that while the eye is always open, the speed at with nerve impulses excited by light in the eye refresh is about 1/25th of a second. Since various ganglion are constantly refreshing, this does not stop you from seeing contiguous motion but does cause phenomenon’s of the eye in certain situations. Basically TV is an electronic version mimicking how the eye sees, so a lot of questions about the eye are as simple as looking at how TV works (e.g. how contrast is so much more important than color, etc). Some folks talk about how we see blurring effects and how that must mean we have a limit to how many FPS we see. This is incorrect. The reason we see blurring is because our brain has a filter for information. We only allow ourselves to process so much. In evolutionary terms this is due to our need to see and what we needed to see and how important it was to see. An eagle for instance can spot a mouse on the ground from a mile in the air. How? It has a blur filter that shows it images more like high speed film with the mouse movement looking like sharp fast motion in fast still images, what some call on-off vision. The eagle developed the need for this. Cat's too have this high speed filter that allows them to see motion in sharp detail. In fact if you stand still you will notice a cat eventually has to scan to see you with it's eye back and forth or it actually can’t see you. But humans never needed to see sharp fast motion as we learned to pick berries more than hunt prey so our brains developed the blur filter that allows as much information as we need to see, then blurs everything else. So when you drive in a car at 65mph everything moves by you in a blur. If you were an eagle, everything would be in sharp pulses so you'd see constant 'frames' of sharp image presented as on-off-on-off, albeit in black and white as such birds have no need for color. And the evolutionary berry picking is also attributed to why we see so little blue and why women see colors 30% more than men.

 

Research shows that the eye can make motion of individual frames with a thresh hold of about 11 fps. 18fps is generally considered the threshold for film to look like fluid motion. That is the center of the eye. it's the edges of our field of view that are more susceptible to flicker. Try looking up at the ceiling in a theater during a movie and you'll see that the screen does indeed flicker. After 18fps it's all about what you need to see that determines how fast you need to present it. There is no limit. Video games (like Nanosaur I played with my kid today) plays at frame rate between 180fps and 200fps. Fast frame rates like this are needed in order for the eye to properly see (really more the fringe vision than the center vision) all of the motion and depth perception seem fluid and not choppy in the entire field of view.

 

As for persistence of vision, IT IS A MYTH. Let me say it again, PERSISTANCE OF VISION IS A MYTH perpetuated for 100 years in textbooks and proven wrong through research on how the eye sees and what parts of the brain process it and how. I was even involved with such research two years ago involving brain imaging during normal vision experiments. Even though it has been shown to be wrong, it still is a persuasive myth still found in textbooks and on websites. Read more here:

 

http://www.uca.edu/org/ccsmi/ccsmi/classic...20Revisited.htm

 

Of note: While I can not give details, we are using the change in frame rates on 'screens' as ‘eye catchers’ right now on certain public displays in the US. We shuffle frame rates of the monitors presentation so that out of the corner of your eye as you walk by, your brain is triggered to look. Then when you focus on the display, all looks fine and you see what we are selling. The variable frame rate caught your reptilian brains need to hunt prey and triggers you to look. Good 21st century technique using the million year old brain as it has been discovered that a certain frequency of strobing causes a primative area of the brain to light up and forces all concious thought to focus on this strobe.

 

Very interesting stuff!!!!

[Daniel Porto]

Since we have gone off-topic a little bit and have determined that there is no real accurate way to find out the answer to the question I was asking, I will ask the question again based on personal experience.

 

When watching Se7en, did you notice the 2 second flash frame? If so, could you see what it was or did you have to go back and pause to see what the image was? Also, if you did notice it did it happen after the 1st viewing, 2nd viewing etc

 

For those that would like to watch it again... (it happens at 3:06)

 

 

 

THANKS IN ADVANCE

Edited January 25, 2009 by Daniel Porto

[Chris Keth]

When watching Se7en, did you notice the 2 second flash frame? If so, could you see what it was or did you have to go back and pause to see what the image was? Also, if you did notice it did it happen after the 1st viewing, 2nd viewing etc

 

First time. It's a woman with blue eyes looking at camera or to camera left. I haven't seen the movie so I don't know her significance.

[Edgar Dubrovskiy]

I think for the sake of the experiment it would be more interesting to give the clip without saying when the flash appears.

So the person watching is not getting ready for 3:06 by concentrating his full attention to the inserted frame, but watches the clip as it goes.

[Daniel Porto]

I think for the sake of the experiment it would be more interesting to give the clip without saying when the flash appears.

So the person watching is not getting ready for 3:06 by concentrating his full attention to the inserted frame, but watches the clip as it goes.

 

Defiantly, I considered that removing the time in which the frame occurs but I thought I would leave it considering I only want answers from those that have seen the full movie in the first place (because they are fully involved in the story and in suspense of if mills is going to john doe, and thus more likely to miss the flash frame.)

 

When did you first notice it?

[Brian Dzyak]

Bottom line, from the phony aroma you smell when you walk into Burger King, to the way logos are designed and represented in ads, you are subjected to subliminal advertising every day.

 

 

I read your post backward and it says, "Paul is dead."

[Walter Graff]

The fragrance you smell is called RTX9338PJS otherwise known as "just cooked bacon cheeseburger-like fragrance. Good advertisers understand the fact that smell is the number one sense that makes you buy. Nike knows you’ll pay for their brand and pay more at their store in NY due to the very light fragrance they pump into the air conditioning system.

 

I think the point of what I am presenting here is that subliminal advertising is all around you. The ear buds on Ipods for instance. Or the brown eggs in the supermarket. But it's not the myth that our culture has made it based on flashing frames. The public perception of subliminal advertising is akin to the stories and mythology told of vampires. Almost believable and if someone tells you a story, you might actually wonder if it's true. There are plenty of films where filmmakers put in flash frames. The Exorcist had them thirty five years ago and I'm sure plenty of others. I'd say it's more the filmmaker living the promise of the myth than based on anything else. Occasionally TV ads have some subliminal gimmick as I mentioned KFC did a few years back. But that too, is really more to call attention to the ad than to really delve into your subconscious. If it really was subliminal, we wouldn't be talking about it. I've never worked for any of the major advertising agencies to have anyone suggest some secret sort of ad other than a joke. I've never been in a creative meeting where we locked the door and presented some sort of secret code to inject into an ad. As I said, injecting frames into a film or ad does nothing to convince you to buy a product. But I also said that every day you are exposed to subliminal advertising. I was just involved with creating a scent and having it put in every dealership of a major auto group. It reinforces the company’s brand, and helps influence people to buy cars. How about the smoking warning on cigarettes and all the money spent on those creative ads 'designed' to make you stop smoking... nope, sorry, they actually make you want to smoke. When put under what is called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the area of the brain that craves lights up when smokers are exposed to those warnings just as they are when shown a person smoking a cigarettes. Did you really think the cigarette companies would volunteer to spend millions doing ‘non smoking’ ads to put themselves out of business? Just before the UK banned cigarette advertising a company started a major campaign showing the company logo against a purple swatch of cloth. After the ban, they removed the logo, but still bought billboards with nothing but the purple swatch. And while the ads were not blatant, they sold cigarettes. Go look at the logo of any fast food company and notice the red and/or orange in the logo. Both colors stimulate hunger. So yes, every single day you are bombarded with subliminal advertising, but it's just not the stuff you expect because it's not based on some cultural myth created by a guy trying to sell projectors so he told everyone that flashing popcorn made people buy more. Truth is, you can't influence people to buy something they don't want. But you can remind them of what they like or use somatic memories to make them associate your product with something good in their life.

[Simon Wyss]

Sorry in case I missed it in the thread but did we mention the fact that our eyeballs tremble? Shaken by their movement muscles at about 50 cycles a second we kind of overthrow the retinal impression again and again. Else the eye nerve(s) wouldn't have a bit to transmit. Vision purple decays, impulse is made, and then?

 

That goes in harmony with the Showscan experience. People have had their eye muscles paralysed for tests. They stated they wouldn't see anything more than what was moving, the rest an indefinable grey.

 

The number of phases of analyzed motion becomes a fluid syntheses at a somewhat variable frequency of 15, 16, whatever, but that has only to do with the effective changes (the apparent motion) of the whole impression. We may loose control of our binocular vision, the parallel gaze, under the influence of alcohol. There, too, appears the fact that our sensors are vibrating.

[Edgar Dubrovskiy]

When did you first notice it?

 

I think, second time I watched the film I realised it is someone's head.

I mean, if I remember correctly, I noticed it first time I've seen the film as well, but I didn't realise it had an actual meaning - I thought it is some kind of transfer/print artifact.

[Brian Dzyak]

Truth is, you can't influence people to buy something they don't want. But you can remind them of what they like or use somatic memories to make them associate your product with something good in their life.

 

Every time I see the words "Walter Graff," I have a desire to read the post.

[Stuart Brereton]

First time. It's a woman with blue eyes looking at camera or to camera left. I haven't seen the movie so I don't know her significance.

 

You haven't seen 'Se7en'? Shame on you, Chris....

[Walter Graff]

Sorry in case I missed it in the thread but did we mention the fact that our eyeballs tremble? Shaken by their movement muscles at about 50 cycles a second we kind of overthrow the retinal impression again and again. Else the eye nerve(s) wouldn't have a bit to transmit. Vision purple decays, impulse is made, and then?

 

That goes in harmony with the Showscan experience. People have had their eye muscles paralysed for tests. They stated they wouldn't see anything more than what was moving, the rest an indefinable grey.

 

The number of phases of analyzed motion becomes a fluid syntheses at a somewhat variable frequency of 15, 16, whatever, but that has only to do with the effective changes (the apparent motion) of the whole impression. We may loose control of our binocular vision, the parallel gaze, under the influence of alcohol. There, too, appears the fact that our sensors are vibrating.

 

 

You're on to it. What you are referring to is saccadic movements. REM sleep is one form. But in that case your brain is “looking ‘ at a lot of images so the movement is far greater. There are five types of eye movements that allow you to see in a normal day and saccadic movements has a specific purpose. Microsaccades are 20 arc second involuntary moments of the eye. You cannot detect them. Without them you could not see well. The reason is that your rods and cones respond to differences in luminance. If you are standing in a room and nothing is changing as you stare at something your rods and cones would start to be over stimulated so the eye vibrates slowly to keep minute photon variables to reexcite the receptors in your eye so the data is over sampled and you can see. The over stimulus you avoid is sort of like flipping a hot potato between two hands to be able to hold it as the never get over stimulated if you tried to hold it in one hand too long. Visually it's sort of like radar where an object is scanned over and over at multiple angels to know exactly where it is and clearly detect the edges. So it helps is keep and image sharp as we use tiny variables in what receptors see to keep it fresh in your mind and not over stimulate the receptors too much. And we use saccaddes as radar to tell us the distance of two objects in view as we scan rapidly between the two giving our brain a 3D map so it can judge distance. In a way you could say that our eyes actually do compress time and space as these fast pulsations send information but not all information to the brain. Once again, the similarity to how TV works and even the blade of a projector can be made with these movements and their purpose. But the speed is not a constant and can vary much lower to your number to much higher depending upon the situation. In a way you can see its affect. Pick two objects in a room. Try to stare at an object and do a slow pan to another object. Notice how it’s really choppy like panning a film camera too fast… you can’t see a smooth pan as your eye must stop and rescan the field of view in order to evaluate if anything is important and keep it in focus. Also you might not notice but when you are curious about what you are looking at you tilt your head around to try to give the brain a slightly different impression of it for evaluation. And a few people do not have the ability to make these tiny movements with their eyes so do it with the same tiny head movements instead. This also helps your ears retune to hear slightly differently and to help evaluate the mystery. And finally, it's these movements that give your eyes about 20 stops of range as opposed to the six or seven they'd have looking at a static image without the re-stimulation of your eyes receptors. Hope I didn’t just give camera manufactures an idea. :) It’s sort of like not having an iris so you have to constantly move the camera so the pixels don't burn in. Doing so makes for less light on the receptors which send these pulses to the brain giving you the ability at creating a sharper image.

[Walter Graff]

Every time I see the words "Walter Graff," I have a desire to read the post.

 

Here's a marketing secret (spoiler involved): Actually you are on to some very deliberate self marketing methods I've accomplished over the years. By me being very vocal and somewhat gruff and flippant, with a heck of a lot of life experience sprinkled in for validity, I have basically created two kinds of people who know my name. Those that 'hate' me because they can't stand my practical and somewhat selfish, self-important look at life, and those that 'like' me for my knowledge, valid, and realistic view of the world. Really both sides are just the same thing with people interpreting them differently. Here comes the marketing part. The beauty is that whether you hate me (my persona on the web, I'm really a pretty fun guy to hang out with), or you like me, most everyone always wants to read what I say. I have very deliberately used some tricks of marketing and subliminal somatic advertising to create the persona I have on the web. It's really no different than those ads we all know where some guy screams at us on TV or the radio or does things a bit offbeat in an ad. One key is that we see it over and over and while we either love or hate the persona created, it makes us remember the brand, like it or not. We may not shop there cause we hate the ads, but we sure are curious about the store. Crazy Eddie and JGE Appliances if you grew up in NY come to mind.

 

B)

[Daniel Porto]

Also you might not notice but when you are curious about what you are looking at you tilt your head around to try to give the brain a slightly different impression of it for evaluation.

 

Some people squint their eyes also and I suppose that has to do with giving the brain and slightly different impression of the surroundings. Possibly just zooming in on the wide angle lens we have to concentrate on a particular object.

 

Interesting