Hello,

I'm sure we've all seen cowboy films where the wagon wheels appear to stop, or be turning slowly backwards or forwards, because the time period between each successive movie frame is equal to, or just shorter or longer than the time it takes each wagon wheel spoke to move to the position occupied by the neighbouring spoke.

But this also happens to me when looking at car wheels in real life. If I'm driving fast on the freeway, and the wheels on the car next to me are rotating rapidly, they can appear to be turning forwards very slowly. It feels like it's happening for the same reason as the wagon wheels.

Does this mean that my eyes are operating in some kind of frame mode? Surely this would mean that the output of my foveal (and retinal?) cells would have to be synchronised in some way?

If our eyes are working in frame mode, what is the frame rate? Can the frame rate change and why? Does an individual's frame rate correlate with anything?

clop