Traveling in Time to the Present

“It takes our brain nearly one-tenth of a second to translate the light that hits our retina into a visual perception of the world around us. While a neural delay of that magnitude may seem minuscule, imagine trying to catch a ball or wade through a store full of people while always perceiving the very recent (one-tenth of a second prior) past. A ball passing within one meter of you and traveling at one meter per second in reality would be roughly six degrees displaced from where you perceive it, and even the slowest forward-moving person can travel at least ten centimeters in a tenth of a second.”

This quote is from an article that discusses the hypothesis that the brain's visual system is able to predict the next 1/10^th of a second, and how that process accounts for certain visual illusions. The article mentions, but does not display, the Hering Illusion, which can be seen here, and which clarifies the main point: as you walk through a doorway, the sides bow out. Fascinating stuff.

Update: Here's a quote from a NYT article about the same research. "In an experiment originated by Dr. Nijhawan, people watch an object pass a flashbulb. The timing is exact: the bulb flashes precisely as the object passes. But people perceive that the object has moved past the bulb before it flashes. Scientists argue that the brain has evolved to see a split second into the future when it perceives motion. Because it takes the brain at least a tenth of a second to model visual information, it is working with old information. By modeling the future during movement, it is “seeing” the present."

Update II: I just realized that my graphic below titled Entity (Saturday, May 3) subtly exhibits this effect, at least to the extent that the horizontal line at top framing the image seems to bend down slightly at the center, and the bottom horizontal line seems to bend upward slightly at the center.