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The Stopped Clock Illusion

submitted by luxury_pie

1 decade 2 years 4 months 2 weeks ago

Relevant XKCD: http://xkcd.com/1080/large/

Wikipedia says:
The term chronostasis (from greek χρόνος, chrónos, "time" and στάσις "standing") refers to the illusion in which the first impression following a saccade appears to be extended in time. The most well-known version of this illusion is the stopped-clock illusion, where the first movement of the second hand of a clock following the viewer directing attention to the clock appears to take longer than the next movement.

Experiments have shown that this illusion is probably caused by the way in which the brain attempts to construct a continuous consciousness experience in spite of quick eye movements (saccades).[1] Although this effect is present with all eye movements, it is most noticeable when an external time-keeping source is observed.

This effect is not only present in visual observation, but is also noticed with auditory stimuli.[2]

11 Comments

bmacs27 says...

There is a bit more debate about what exactly is going on than he is implying. While there is some suppression of the optic nerve signals during a saccade, it isn't clear it is entirely suppressed. Rather, it just seems that the motion blur from the extremely high image velocity renders the image useless. One trick I like to demonstrate that to myself is looking at a fast fan. If you move your eyes in the direction of the fan blade, you'll actually see a clear image of the blade because the retinal image velocity will be much lower.

renatojj says...

He's straight? Who knew...

I ttried thhis exxperiment whille typping thiss.

*nochannel *brain *science

This video has been removed from all channels (Wtf, Timeshift, Brain) due to invalid channel assignment - nochannel invoked by xxovercastxx. Please review the FAQ to learn about appropriate channel assignments.

Adding video to channels (Brain, Science) - requested by xxovercastxx.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Wednesday, July 11th, 2012 6:58am PDT - promote requested by jonny.

Now I have a valid excuse for when I waste 40 minutes in a day.

*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by lampishthing.

Unsung_Hero says...

>> ^probie:

Now I have a valid excuse for when I waste 40 minutes in a day.

I already have one of those... It's called VideoSift

p.s. Upvote for Megaman's Death sound at the end of the video!

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