Abstract
WHILE watching noise displayed on a television screen recently I noticed a visual effect which I report here. As normally viewed, displays of video noise (‘snow’) have the appearance of fields of small speckles which seem to dart about at random. When, however, the noise is viewed monocularly, the texture of the field seems finer and the speckles more nearly static. The display seen monocularly has the appearance of a field of smaller speckles which scintillate in situ. I have shown the effect to about ten friends and colleagues, without telling them what to expect. All noticed some difference between binocular and monocular viewing and several promptly described exactly what I had seen. In general, the size change was more consistently reported than the motion change.
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References
Nagata, K., and Umehara, T., Japan J. appl. Phys., 12, 694 (1973).
Julesz, B., Foundations of Cyclopean Perception, (University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1971).
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MACDONALD, R. Kinetic Cyclopean effect. Nature 249, 192 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1038/249192a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/249192a0
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