ceptionEye and Brainsimplifies the situation and states that the continuous ac-
tion as seen in a motion picture film“relies upon two rather distinct visual facts.
The first is persistence of vision, and the second the so-calledphi phenomenon.”
Most perceptual psychologists today agree that multiple factors contribute to
apparent motion.
Playing with Vision: The Thaumatrope
Picking up and playing with a nineteenth-century optical device allows anyone
to re-experience the transformation of a still image into...something else. Be-
yond demonstrating the phenomenon of the afterimage or apparent movement
the fascination these images draw from us endures. A true phenomenology of
that experience may be sharpened through attention to successive theories of
vision, but it also exceeds the context of the history of science. The moving im-
age breaks out of its intended context when its playfulness triumphs over its
philosophy.
The Thaumatrope, one of the earliest optical philosophical toys, has a some-
what indirect relation to apparent motion, but demonstrates the flicker fusion
aspect of persistence of vision quite dramatically, through its ability to fuse a
continuous image from two rapidly alternated separate images. As Crary says
of the Thaumatrope,“Similar phenomenon had been observed in earlier centu-
ries merely by spinning a coin and seeing both sides at the same time, but this
was the first time the phenomenon was given a scientific explanationanda de-
vice was produced to be sold as a popular entertainment. The simplicity of this
‘philosophical toy’made unequivocally clear both the fabricated and the hallu-
cinatory nature of its image and the rupture between perception and its ob-
ject.”
The purveyor and promoter of the Thaumatrope, John Ayrton Paris was a
distinguished medical doctor and scientific author who had used his philoso-
phical toy to demonstrate the principle of persistence of vision to the Royal So-
ciety in. But he aggressively promoted the device’s role as an educational
toy and wrote a rather long novelistic account of how toys and games could
teach young people the nature of the universe and their own perceptions. This
book (so popular it went through several editions and revisions) embeds
these devices into a very revealing discourse of popular nineteenth century
science. Its title says it all:Philosophy in Sport Made Science in Earnest: An attempt
to illustrate the first principles of natural philosophy by the aid of popular toys and
sports.The chapter he devotes to the Thaumatrope opens with a clear argument
for the educational use of illusions: questioning human senses and demonstrat-
The Play between Still and Moving Images 31