Phi Effect - Text
Often confused with the persistence of vision (the eye’s ability to remember information for a few moments after it has disappeared), the phi effect is a physiological phenomenon which makes it possible to perceive movement where there are only successive fixed images. When the eye perceives an object in two different positions, one after the other, rather than transmitting an impression of discontinuity, the brain compensates by connecting the two images and fills the absence of transition with the transition it deems most likely. This transition takes the form of a movement linking the two points.
This effect is the source of the illusion of movement in the cinema, based on the very quick propagation of a succession of fixed images. Rather than having the impression of a superimposition of images which are slightly different from each other, we have the sensation of uninterrupted movement. This principle functions the same in the case of both live-action cinema and animation. Hence the approach of certain theorists, who believe that cinema as a whole is based on the principle of animation, beyond the institutional difference between live action films and animated film.
Bibliography
- Mannoni, Laurent. Étienne-Jules Marey. La mémoire de l’œil. Paris: Mazotta/Cinémathèque française, 1999.
- Cholodenko, Alan. “The Animation of Cinema.” The Semiotic Review of Books 18, no. 2 (2008): 1-10.
