The flash-lag, Fröhlich and related motion illusions are artifacts of discrete sampling in the visual system
Year: 2017
Type: preprint
Abstract: The Fröhlich effect and flash-lag effect, in which moving objects appear advanced along their trajectories compared to their actual positions, have defied a simple and consistent explanation. Here, we show that these illusions can be understood as a natural consequence of temporal compression in the human visual system. Discrete sampling at some stage of sensory perception has long been considered, and if it were true, it would necessarily lead to these illusions of motion. We show that the discrete perception hypothesis, with a single free parameter, the perceptual moment or sampling rate, can quantitatively explain all of the scenarios of the Fröhlich and flash-lag effects. We interpret discrete perception as the implementation of data compression in the brain, and our conscious perception as the reconstruction of the compressed input.
Author: Keith A Schneider
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4408290583