TED-Ed：运动的视错觉

本短篇讲述了人的眼睛会在物体速度达到一定程度时出现幻觉的故事。

中英双语

Take a series of still, sequential images.

取一叠静止 连续的图像

Let’s look at them one by one.

我们逐一来看看

Faster.

加快速度

Now, let’s remove the gaps, go faster still.

现在 我们去掉停顿 继续加速

Wait for it … Bam! Motion!

等一下…… 砰！ 动起来了！

Why is that?

那是怎么回事呢

Intellectually, we know we’re just looking at a series of still images,

从理性来说 我们知道自己在看一沓静止的图像

but when we see them change fast enough,

但图像更换的足够快时

they produce the optical illusion of appearing as a single, persistent image

它们会产生一种光学错觉 就像是只有一张固定的

that’s gradually changing form and position.

连续不断改变形状和位置的图像

This effect is the basis for all motion picture technology,

这种效果是所有电影技术的基础

from our LED screens of today

从如今的LED屏幕

to their 20th-century cathode ray forebearers,

到它20世纪老祖宗-阴极射线管

from cinematic film projection to the novelty toy,

从电影放映到新奇玩具

even, it’s been suggested, all the way back to the Stone Age

甚至 有人说 它可以一直追溯到

when humans began painting on cave walls.

人类开始在洞穴的墙上作画的石器时代

This phenomenon of perceiving apparent motion in successive images

这种在连续图像中感知视运动的现象

is due to a characteristic of human perception

是基于人类感知的特性

historically referred to as “persistence of vision.”

其在历史上被称作“视觉暂留现象”

The term is attributed to the English-Swiss physicist Peter Mark Roget,

这一术语出自英裔瑞士医生皮特•马克•罗杰克

who, in the early 19th century,

他在19世纪早期

used it to describe a particular defect of the eye

用这种说法来描述眼睛的特殊缺陷

that resulted in a moving object

即 运动物体达到一定速度时

appearing to be still when it reached a certain speed.

出现类似静止一般的状态

Not long after, the term was applied to describe the opposite,

不久之后 这个词被比利时物理学家

the apparent motion of still images,

转盘活动影相镜的发明者 约瑟夫•普拉托

by Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau, inventor of the phenakistoscope.

用来描述相反的物体 即静止图像的视运动

He defined persistence of vision as the result of successive afterimages,

他把幻象的持续性认定为连续余象的结果

which were retained and then combined in the retina,

幻象被存储 然后在视网膜中积聚

making us believe that what we were seeing is a single object in motion.

使我们相信 自己看到的 是独立的运动物体

This explanation was widely accepted in the decades to follow

这种解释在随后几十年得到广泛的认可

and up through the turn of the 20th century,

直到20世纪之交

when some began to question what was physiologically going on.

一些人开始质疑生理上发生的事情

In 1912, German psychologist Max Wertheimer

在1912年 德国心理学家马克斯•韦特海默

outlined the basic primary stages of apparent motion

用简单的视错觉

using simple optical illusions.

概述了视运动的初始阶段

These experiments led him to conclude

这些实验使他推断出

the phenomenon was due to processes which lie behind the retina.

这种现象是由视网膜背后的处理引起的

In 1915, Hugo Münsterberg,

1915年 雨果•闵斯特伯格

a German-American pioneer in applied psychology,

一位德裔美国应用心理学先驱

also suggested that the apparent motion of successive images

也提到了 连续图像的运动感

is not due to their being retained in the eye,

并非因它们被存储在眼中形成

but is superadded by the action of the mind.

而是被记忆行为附加上去的

In the century to follow, experiments by physiologists

在接下来的一个世纪 心理学家的实验

have pretty much confirmed their conclusions.

已经几乎证明了他们的结论

As it relates to the illusion of motion pictures,

图像动起来的幻觉

persistence of vision has less to do with vision itself

视觉暂留其实与视觉本身关系不大

than how it’s interpreted in the brain.

而与大脑对其解读有关

Research has shown that different aspects of what the eye sees,