The analytical research on the apparent movement perception: Psychophysical consideration I

Presenting two target stimuli at the proper spacing, duration, and time interval produces movement perception in human observers. The observer sees a single stimulus, moving continuously across the physically empty space, from its first location to its second. The production of the movement perception depends upon such physical variables as duration of stimuli, X₁; time between stimuli, X₂; intensity of stimuli, X₃; and distance between stimuli, X₄. The research examines the optimum conditions for producing movement perception. The determination of the optimum movement perception was made in the range of variables X₁, X₂, and X₄ in the respective interval 90≤X₁≤310 milliseconds, O≤X₂≤50 seconds, 0≤X₄≤15 centimeters. A chisquared test of independence reveals that the frequency of responses of optimum movement is dependent only on the variables X₁ and X₄. Therefore, by curvilinear regression analysis, the frequency of responses of optimum movement perception is approximated in terms of X₁ for each experimental value of X₄. For each value of X₄ the parabola, f(X₁|X₄) = β₀ +β₁X₁ + β₂X₁² and the value of X₁ where f has its maximum were found. The application areas of the results are further discussed in the second paper.