Let's talk about the, phenomenon

of the speeds that we perceive and

specifically about the flash-lag effect.
So, the flash-lag effect is illustrated,
here, and the.
It's a little bit hard to understand, but
let me see if I can explain it to you.
What's presented to you or
any normal observer
is a flash of light,
that's coincident with a moving object.
In this case moving red bar.
So that's the physical presentation.
The flashing light
occurring simultaneously,
at exact coincidence,
with the position of the moving bar.
And, what you see, and
what people have noted for
a very long time,
since the 19th century, is that.
And the flash is perceived as not being
coincident with the moving object,
but behind it a bit, ergo,
the flash lag effect.
And that the amount of delay, the lag.
Is a function of the speed
the faster the presen,
presentation this made the faster
the red bar is moving.
The more lag is evident in the,
in the coincident flash.
So that's the phenomenology of
the flash lag effect and people have.
Studied it for a very long time and
it's obviously a puzzle to explain
why the phenomenon occurs
in the first place.
And what it indicates about the way
we see the speed of moving objects.
Incidentally, I should say that the speed
of moving objects has a range that,
again, you're familiar with.
You look at the clock on the wall,
the hands on the clock are moving but
you don't see any motion.
If you look, so to speak [COUGH] at
a bullet that's been fired out of.
A, bullet that's been fired
out of a muzzle of the gun,
of course you don't see the bullet, so.
As a physical rate of motion of course.
But [COUGH] you, you don't see that speed.
So there's a very finite range
over which we perceive speeds, and
that range is from about a tenth of
a degree per second of visual angle.
So something that's moving is [COUGH]
described in terms of the amount of.
Visual angle.

It covers per unit of time per second.

And the range is from about a tenth
of a degree of a visual angle to
approximately a 150 or
200 degrees of visual angle per second.
At which case we first
see objects as blur.
Then we just don't see them at all.
As is the case of a speeding bullet.
So, turning back to the FlaSh-Lag Effect,
it's possible to measure the, the
FlaSh-Lag Effect in, quantitative terms.
And of course if you, you want to do this
as we've explained these other qualities,
of vision if you want to
talk about the speed.
By moving objects, you would have to
translate the phenomenon that I've just
described to you in general terms.
Into some kind of quantitative,
us, assessment.
And the apparatus for
doing this is shown here.
It's rather complicated.
I don't need to explain the details of it.
Suffice to say that [COUGH]
subjects are asked to
adjust the flash with
respect to moving the line.
The red bar that we saw on the previous
illustration, they're asked to adjust it,
and by adjusting it, so
that they appear coincident.
That is, you're actually
seeing it as lagging behind.
But you move it, this apparatus [COUGH] to
the point where it appears coincidence.
And in that way, you can measure [COUGH]
the amount of lag in quantitative terms.
And here, the results of that kind
of analysis and on this axis is the.
Perceived lag again and degrees.
And the image speed on the x axis.
And you see that there's a very nice,
this is an arrow for
a number of normal subjects.
You'll see that there's a very nice curve,
showing that the lag that you see for
real speeds.
Is less than the line that you see for
high speeds, and
this follows a nice exponential function.
So, what does that, enable you to do,
that's helpful in explaining why
the flash light phenomenon occurs.
And what it's telling us,
about the way in which we see speeds.
Well, remember the name in the game
in all of these things that we've
talked about before.

The qualities of lightness,

the color, geometrical qualities
that all of these things
are attacked in the same framework.
Of trying to understand the frequency
of occurrence of whatever is
the stimulus that you are interested in.
And using that database of
human experience to try and
rationalize what we see.
And the difference between what we see and
the physics of what's actually.
Happening in both the real world and
on the retina as a result of projection.
That's the finger through which we
try to understand what's going on.
And here we're talking about
the frequency of occurrence of speeds of
moving objects projected onto the retina.
So, the idea is going to be that.
The explanation of the flash
light effect will fall out
of the speeds that we have
experienced of moving objects over.
Over human history and
over individual lifetime experience.
Well, that's not so easy to determine
because in today's technology there
really is no apparatus that lets
us do that in the way we could.
For example, look at the frequency
of occurrence of lightness and
the frequency of occurrence
of limelights and other.
A phenomena that we've talked
about in previous sessions.
So because there's no technology
that really lets you analyze that,
well you might think,
well why not do in a movie?
Well remember,
movie is two dimensional, you really
need to have this evidence in 3D.
And to do that you really need to
set up an artificial environment and
that's what shown in the diagram here.
So this simple frustum,
frustum just means a cutoff pyramid.
That's an artificial visual space.
And in to that artificial visual space,
this is of course all done
in computer simulation.
Are placed a very large number of objects,
these little dots, that are moving in
a whole variety of different directions,
and in a whole variety of speeds.
And the assumption that's made here,
it's the wrong assumption, but non
the less, it's a reasonable approximation.
The space, the visual space,

the real world,

if you like, in simulation,
is populated by objects.
That are, moving equally,
frequently in all, all possible,
real world directions and
all possible real world speeds.
Again, within the range, of that,
Those limits that I talked about,
a minute ago, from the clock hand moving
to something that becomes a blur.
This is the artificial retina,
the image plane.
That serves as the retina.
And what, what's done here is to
compile the frequency of
occurrence of projected speeds.
Given this physical space
populated by an assortment of
[COUGH] speeds and directions that are.
Simulating what's going on for
objects in the real world.
So, what happens when you do that?
I mean, you might imagine, well,
you know, you've got speeds and
directions that are equally
distributed in the real world.
Wouldn't you just expect
an equal distribution of
those speeds projected
onto an image plane?
Like the retina.
And the answer is no, that's,
not at all what you get.
But the [COUGH] probability of occurrence,
the, the frequency of occurrence.
If you like, of,
image speeds plotted against,
the occurrence in this upper graph,
the probability of their occurrence.
Is very much biased to the left here and
it's not hard to see why this is
the case that when you cumulate that.
[COUGH] Frequency of occurrence into
a cumulative probability distribution,
you can do ranking in
the same way we've done.
Ranking of cumulative experience of
lightness values luminance, and so on.
It puts this in exactly
the same framework as
the other things that we've talked about.
So that you can test the hypothesis
that the speeds that we actually see.
Are determined by the rank.
How many above, how many below,
the rank, of any given
projected speed onto the retina, given by
this, cumulative probability distribution.
Which is just, a transform of probability.

This is the, sum.

Of all of the probabilities this
is the individual probability of
occurrence of a different speed.
So, what happens when you do that
is shown here where we can pair
the ranking with the frequency
of occurrence of a flash light.
Or rather the amount of flash
light that's actually seen.
So these red dots
are the reported Perceived
lag from the apparatus and
the results I talked about a minute ago.
And the blue line here is the prediction
based on the relative rank.
Of the speeds that humans have
experienced over history or
over individual experience.
And you can see here that
the agreement is, is very good.
That is, you accurately predict
the lag that is seen based on.
The cumulative probability of human
experience so that's consistent
with the hypothesis that
the speeds that we see.
Are generated by experience
in the same way that.
The lightness we see,
the ambiance that we see,
that the other aspects of
geometry that we, see.
What all of those other qualities of
vision are also explained
in this same fashion.
So that's a good indication
that speed perceives speed,
which is very different as I said from.
Physical speed is
explainable in that fashion.