Do We Perceive Movement?

[Belisarius]

Do we perceive movement as movement or is it merely a function of memory and sight? When we see something move, do we remember seeing it at other locations on its way to its present location and deduce movement? Or do we somehow perceive movement directly? Discuss.

[Alric]

I think it might be the same thing. As in it slowly moves from location to location but you brain processes almost instantly so it might as well be perceiving movement.

[Draco]

I've thought about this alot before... I know cats see movement... there eyes and brain are anatomically designed for it. Also, part certian kendo disciplines is learning to kind of see slower, to precieve your opponents movement better. It's hard to explain...

[fluid phil]

Originally posted by Belisarius Do we perceive movement as movement or is it merely a function of memory and sight? When we see something move, do we remember seeing it at other locations on its way to its present location and deduce movement? Or do we somehow perceive movement directly? Discuss. My (admitedly rather ignorant) understanding of motion perception is that the eye/brain takes snapshots at 1/10th of a second (if I remember correctly). This is what motion pictures take advantage of and appear to us to show smooth motion when the reality is a serious of stills played faster than a humans eyesight 'refresh rate'.

[Annorax]

Is there a smallest unit of time? Is there a smallest unit of length? What is the time interval for the smallest unit of conciousness perception? I think without memory we cannot percieve movement, because we can percieve only the NOW, but with memory, our brain traces back the 'nows' that came before and we percieve that as movement. When we are thinking of the past, we are actually retrieving from archived memory a version of the past and experiencing that in the present now.

[mongreloctopus]

Originally posted by fluid phil My (admitedly rather ignorant) understanding of motion perception is that the eye/brain takes snapshots at 1/10th of a second (if I remember correctly). This is what motion pictures take advantage of and appear to us to show smooth motion when the reality is a serious of stills played faster than a humans eyesight 'refresh rate'. i'm not sure about the framerate, but this is widely believed in the world of cognitive science.

[Neruo]

Well what we see is just the nerve cells in our eyes telling us we see some stuff, a bunch of pixels. Our brains make an image out of it, and make it into 'stuff'. Our brain sees movement, our eyes do not, signals from the nerves in your just change. Put the 'pixels' don't mean shit untill processes by the brain. %^__^

[Feeble Wizard]

Originally posted by Belisarius Do we perceive movement as movement or is it merely a function of memory and sight? When we see something move, do we remember seeing it at other locations on its way to its present location and deduce movement? *Or do we somehow perceive movement directly? The MT visual map of the brain perceives motion. It creates the effect of motion, even in optical illusions. If this area is damaged, you will have motion blindness, and everything will look like a collection of snapshots (which is what you get with memory and sight alone).

[AirRick101]

Perhaps memory of the previous location of a moving object is the only way to perceive moment. But that's more of a way of analyzing it than perceiving. If that were the case, then we'd be like televisions, measuring in frames per second, and humans don't work digitally. I think we perceive movement only in reference to everything around that object that doesn't move. U need an environment with an opposing characteristic. For example, if we said that everything in one room, including the room itself, were moving west at 100 mph, we wouldn't be able to tell because there is no reference to say what's moving and what's not. I guess a deeper question to ask after this is...is movement a reality?