The stroboscopic human vision

Maarten A. Bouman Helmholtz Instituut, Utrecht University The Netherlands 1 september 2010 Abstract When the frequency of seeing light from a pair of point flashes is beyond the probability summation of the frequencies of the separate flashes, the surplus is due to the successful interaction of subliminal responses from the different flashes. Experiments with different distances and different periods of the pair show that successful interaction occurs when in each of two successive time-quanta of 0.04 seconds and in each of two adjacent distinct receptor groups at least one subliminal receptor response occurs. An autonomous source produces the time-quanta. It serves the time processing of the central nervous system and of the motor systems. Possibly, action potentials from the purkinje cells of the myocardium play a role. Hyper acuity in direction and in depth, flicker fusion, perceptual rivalry and other phenomena follow from the quantized spatiotemporal signal processing.