Erik Brisson (ebrisson++at++lobster.bu.edu)
Fri, 17 Jan 97 10:56:53 EST
Perhaps the visual system does not compute distance as is assumed in this
statement (i.e. distance / time over a long enough time to ignore the
discrete frame rate). An alternative would be that it is done
"instantaneously", i.e., the visual system may identify an object in the two
positions before and after a jump, and divide that distance by some fixed
time length (determined by neural properties). The obvious next question is
then, what about the stationary time periods. You get a sequence of zero
motion with high velocity values in between. But it may be that the zero values
are simply ignored, and only the high velocity information is passed up to the
higher vision levels. From an evolutionary point of view this sort of makes
sense. Motion in the real world is smooth, so nothing is lost by this.
The processing can be done at a lower level, and quicker. It also requires no
division, which is simpler.
This is all naive speculation which I can't back up. But an interesting
question deserves (or will at least invariably solicit) speculative answers.
Erik
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Erik Brisson
Manager of Graphics Programming
Scientific Computing and Visualization Group
Boston University
Office of Information Technology
111 Cummington Street
Boston, MA 02215
e-mail: ebrisson++at++bu.edu
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