Editing Persistence of vision (section)

==Other theories for motion perception in film==
In his 1833 patent and his explanatory pamphlet for his stroboscopic discs, Simon Stampfer emphasized the importance of the interruptions of the beams of light reflected by the drawings, while a mechanism would transport the images past the eyes at an appropriate speed. The pictures had to be constructed according to certain laws of physics and mathematics, including the systematic division of a movement into separate moments. He described the idea of persistence of vision only as the effect that made the interruptions go unnoticed.<ref name=Stampfer1833/>

The idea that the motion effects in so-called "optical toys", like the phénakisticope and the zoetrope, may be caused by images lingering on the retina was questioned in an 1868 article by [[William Benjamin Carpenter]]. He suggested that the illusion was "rather a ''mental'' than a ''retinal'' phenomenon".<ref>{{cite book|title=On the Zoetrope and its Antecedents|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H0FHAAAAcAAJ&q=Student%20and%20Intellectual%20Observer&pg=PA428|year=1868|last=Carpenter}}</ref>

Early theories of persistence of vision were centered on the retina, while later theories preferred or added ideas about cognitive (brain centered) elements of [[motion perception]]. Many psychological concepts of the basic principle of animation suggested that the blanks in between the images were filled in by the mind.{{citation needed|date=November 2020}}

[[Max Wertheimer]] proved in 1912 that test subjects did not see anything in between the two different positions in which a figure was projected by a [[tachistocope]] at frequencies that were ideal for the illusion of one figure moving from one position to the next. He used the Greek letter φ (phi) to designate illusions of motion. At higher speeds, when test subjects believed to see both positions more or less simultaneously, a moving objectless phenomenon was seen between and around the projected figures. Wertheimer supposed this "pure [[phi phenomenon]]" was a more direct sensory experience of motion.<ref name=Wertheimer>{{cite book|last=Wertheimer|year=1912|title=Experimentelle Studien über das Sehen von Bewegung. Zeitschrift für Psychologie 61|pages=161–265|url=http://gestalttheory.net/download/Wertheimer1912_Sehen_von_Bewegung.pdf|access-date=2019-04-02|archive-date=2018-11-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181123195512/http://gestalttheory.net/download/Wertheimer1912_Sehen_von_Bewegung.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> The ideal animation illusion of motion across the interval between the figures was later called "[[beta movement]]".

A visual form of memory known as [[iconic memory]] has been described as the cause of persistence of vision.<ref name="Coltheart">{{cite journal | last1 = Coltheart | first1 = M | date = Jul 1980 | title = The persistences of vision | journal = Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci | volume = 290 | issue = 1038| pages = 57–69 | pmid = 6106242 | doi = 10.1098/rstb.1980.0082 | bibcode = 1980RSPTB.290...57C | doi-access = free }}</ref> Some scientists nowadays consider the entire theory of iconic memory a myth.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}}

When contrasting the theory of persistence of vision with that of phi phenomena, an understanding emerges that the eye ''is not a [[camera]]'' and does not see in frames per second.  In other words, vision is not as simple as light registering on a medium since the brain has to make sense of the visual data the eye provides and construct a coherent picture of reality.{{citation needed|date=November 2020}}

Although [[psychologist]]s and [[physiologist]]s have rejected the relevance of the theory of retinal persistence film viewership, film academics and theorists generally have not, and it persists in citations in many classic and modern film-theory texts.<ref>Bazin, André (1967) ''What is Cinema?'', Vol. I, Trans. Hugh Gray, Berkeley: University of California Press</ref><ref>Cook, David A. (2004) ''A History of Narrative Film''. New York, W. W. Norton & Company.</ref><ref>Metz, Christian (1991) ''Film Language: A Semiotics of The Cinema'', trans. Michael Taylor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.</ref><ref name=Anderson1993>{{cite journal
 | title = The Myth of Persistence of Vision Revisited
 |author1=Anderson, Joseph |author2=Anderson, Barbara | year = 1993
 | journal = Journal of Film and Video
 | volume = 45
 | issue = 1
 | pages = 3–12
 | jstor = 20687993}}</ref>

Joseph and Barbara Anderson argue that the phi phenomenon privileges a more [[Constructionism (learning theory)|constructionist]] approach to the cinema ([[David Bordwell]], [[Noël Carroll]], [[Kirstin Thompson]]) whereas the persistence of vision privileges a realist approach ([[André Bazin]], [[Christian Metz (critic)|Christian Metz]], Jean-Louis Baudry).<ref name=Anderson1993/>