Timeline for Sensitivity of eyes to flashing lights
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 7, 2015 at 8:02 | comment | added | Lefty | Interesting point @szulat. Arguably my visual system is failing 100 times per second. It's really the accuracy and regularity of the timing that interests me. It's not something I associate with biological systems at all, hence the question - but maybe biologists see nothing strange in this at all...? | |
| Mar 7, 2015 at 0:47 | comment | added | szulat | seeing trails of dots means you are NOT perceiving individual flashes - otherwise you would see a single moving and flashing dot. but you may be still able to detect something IS flashing, this is probably handled by a different part of our brain visual circuitry. | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 23:31 | comment | added | Lefty | The site where I got the image has a few people who can also perceive these light trails. The suggestion there is that these rear-lights actually flash with a frequency of 200Hz! | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 23:05 | comment | added | Lefty | @Chris Stronks I've added an image to explain what I mean a little better. I'm not talking about the individual LEDs in the light cluster - the entire group of LEDs must flash in unison because I see the multiple images like the photo. So as you can see, the movement across my vision (in time) captures the rear light as images separated in space. I'm in the UK - our mains is 50Hz too - but I've never met anyone who can see the flashing of a fluorescent tube the same as me. In what way do you think people are able to perceive 50Hz? | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 22:59 | history | edited | Lefty | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Mar 4, 2015 at 22:35 | comment | added | AliceD♦ | 4 clarifications would come in handy to answer this question. (a) You speak of LED lights being unconnected dots. Often these are in fact unconnected dots? Is this so extraordinary?; (b) Comment (a) seems to address spatial resolution, whereas the rest of the question seems to address temporal resolution. Are you saying both spatial and temporal resolution are extraordinary? (c) the edit: what trail of flashes? A trail is spatially defined while sampling rates are temporal characteristics (d) where do you live? The mains in the US is 50 Hz, which is not unusual for folks to perceive. | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 12:52 | history | edited | Lefty | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Mar 4, 2015 at 12:43 | comment | added | Lefty | @fileunderwater Thanks for that - I couldn't find anything when I searched the archive, hence the question. I know about the peripheral vision thing and rod density. I can verify that the fluorescent tube thing is much more sensitive at the periphery of my vision - which makes it even more annoying! It's much more difficult to say with the rear-light scenario, I mainly notice it when I sweep my eyes rapidly so I guess the periphery is playing a greater part in vision at that time than during normal, focussed driving. | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 11:57 | comment | added | fileunderwater | two related Qs and maybe partial answers: biology.stackexchange.com/questions/7445/… and biology.stackexchange.com/questions/9277/… | |
| Mar 4, 2015 at 9:38 | review | First posts | |||
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| Mar 4, 2015 at 9:33 | history | asked | Lefty | CC BY-SA 3.0 |