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Anonymous
This article is about the theory on human vision. For other uses of the term, see Persistence of vision (disambiguation).
According to the theory of persistence of vision, the perceptual processes of the brain or the retina of the human eye retains an image for a brief moment. A visual form of memory known as iconic memory has been described as the cause of this phenomenon[1]. Persistence of vision is said to account for the illusion of motion which results when a series of film images are displayed in quick succession, rather than the perception of the individual frames in the series.
Although psychologists and physiologists have rejected the relevance of this theory to film viewership, film academics and theorists generally have not. Some scientists nowadays consider the entire theory a myth. [1]
Persistence of vision should be compared with the related phenomena of beta movement and phi movement. A critical part of understanding these visual perception phenomena is that the eye is not a video camera: there is no "frame rate" or "scan rate" in the eye: instead, the eye/brain system has a combination of motion detectors, detail detectors and pattern detectors, the outputs of all of which are combined to create the visual experience.
The frequency at which flicker becomes invisible is called the flicker fusion threshold, and is dependent on the level of illumination.
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