Eva Schiffer

Movies in the Minds Eye.

Summary:

This chapter discusses the affect of human neuropsychology and the post processing of image data that is done in our minds on what we perceive. A particular focus is given to helping filmmakers understand how these psychological effects can dictate what will or will not be perceived as we would expect.

Problem:

How does the human mind change what we perceive in film?
How can our perception make film more or less effective?


Method:

This paper discusses a variety of visual effects that are part of human visual post processing and perception, but not linked to the physical structures of the eye. Special focus is given to relative motion, human perception of actions as goals or intentions, how overlapping of cuts affects our perception of motion, and how well we remember and reconstruct moving information that we previously viewed.

Key Ideas:

People perceive things that can be radically different from the simplest explanation for they see.

Filmmakers can take advantage of human perception to create more affective cuts and films.

Contributions:

General information on how human neuropsychology affects vision and motion perception. 

Documentation of specific optical effects, such as "framework-relative paths of motion".

General encouragement that filmmakers understand the psychology of vision when constructing shots and cuts.

Questions:

I was curious if the examples accompanying this text were more clear in the original version. The print of a photocopy that I have makes some of them woefully hard to understand.