Did you know?

[plastic penguin]

Did you know Bono has revealed he's a big Abba and BeeGees fan

 

[12th Monkey]

Did you know Bono has revealed he's a big Abba and BeeGees fan

The former I can cope with, the latter.........not.

 

[plastic penguin]

The former I can cope with, the latter.........not.

Quite like both. I'm closet BeeGees fan. Bit of Saturday Night Fever, eh?

 

[12th Monkey]

Different animals perceive time differently. I often wondered how animals in slo-mo clips manage to react as quickly as they do, so asked the question of Science Focus a few months ago. By showing animals strobing lights (the pace of which ramps up), their neural activity can be monitored and the point at which they stop detecting the strobing and just see a steady light can be detected. It varies, so many (particularly smaller) creatures are able to 'chop' time up into smaller chunks than we can - in part helping to give reactions that are beyond us.

I suspect 24fps must look pretty rubbish to them...

 

[Friesiansam]

Different animals perceive time differently. I often wondered how animals in slo-mo clips manage to react as quickly as they do, so asked the question of Science Focus a few months ago. By showing animals strobing lights (the pace of which ramps up), their neural activity can be monitored and the point at which they stop detecting the strobing and just see a steady light can be detected. It varies, so many (particularly smaller) creatures are able to 'chop' time up into smaller chunks than we can - in part helping to give reactions that are beyond us.

I suspect 24fps must look pretty rubbish to them...

I would suggest that is just measuring the speed of their vision system, not how they perceive time. Also, part of the reason small animals can react faster, is just down to their size. Nerve impulses from the brain have far less distance to travel but, travel at about the same speed as in large animals, therefore instructions can arrive at the muscles very much quicker than in large animals.

 

[12th Monkey]

I would suggest that is just measuring the speed of their vision system, not how they perceive time. Also, part of the reason small animals can react faster, is just down to their size. Nerve impulses from the brain have far less distance to travel but, travel at about the same speed as in large animals, therefore instructions can arrive at the muscles very much quicker than in large animals.

It can't just be about the eye itself, there's nothing in the physical structure that could impose an arbitrary cutoff related to strobe frequency - the eye just transmits - it must be about how the brain interprets what it receives and therefore becomes about perception, not senses.

I should stress that it's not only small animals that have an advantage over us in this respect, though obviously you're right about nerve length.

The other factor is that because ratio of volume to size increases disproportionately, things happen faster on smaller scales, so it makes sense that smaller animals would have evolved to adapt to this.

Respect you though I do, I'm trusting Science Focus and the studies in question!

 

[Friesiansam]

It can't just be about the eye itself, there's nothing in the physical structure that could impose an arbitrary cutoff related to strobe frequency - the eye just transmits - it must be about how the brain interprets what it receives and therefore becomes about perception, not senses.

I didn't say it was just about the eye. The vision system includes that part of the brain that receives the information from the eyes and interprets it. I still don't believe the study was testing perception of time, rather the speed at which the vision system can take in, interpret and react to, what the eyes see, not the animal's perception of our arbitrary human concept of time.

This is all getting a bit deep for this forum...

 

[plastic penguin]

My daughter has come up with a good one:

The little Boots in our village. The amount of older people who shout and scream at her because their prescription isn't ready.

Even though she explains politely they haven't received the script from the doctors surgery, according to the customers it's all Boots fault.

A couple of the staff were threatened with violence a few months ago, and more recently the window of the shop was smashed.

The GP surgery clearly state it takes around 3 working days to be sent through to the pharmacy. And the pharmacy are overworked with around 200 a day. Often my daughter doesn't get home until 7-8 PM, even though they close at 6pm and 5.30pm on a Saturday.

She loves the pharmaceutical industry but hates our tiny Boots.