I know there is an answer to this because a teacher told me once, but I forgot. I would also be interested in knowing how fast the ears/brain are and how much latency there is for the eyes and ears. Also the speed of thought would be nice but I doubt they know that.
Weeeeeell … the brain doesn’t work in ‘frames per second’, but you might think about reaction times (RT) as a replacement (i.e., how fast you can respond to a visual / auditory / etc stimulus). Have a look at: this for lots of info. IIRC this topic was discussed on the board fairly recently, too.
‘Speed of thought’ is too vague to be addressed, really, but maybe fastest RTs will do the job here for you, too? Note that reaction times vary greatly depending on what you are reacting to, and how exactly the RT is measured.
HTH.
On the first question…
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=180781
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=161372
Hmm, I dont have an answer, but I’ve been wondering this recently whilst working at my computer and watching TV at the same time.
If I’ve got both in my field of vision, the one which I’m not concentrating on will appear like a TV/Computer moniter appears if you film it with a video camera.
Does our brain simply get used to processing information at one fps setting, and can’t process the other things going on at different fps’?
Cheers, Harry
What’s happening is simply that your peripheral vision is much more sensitive to flicker than central vision. The item you are not concentrating on will (usually) be in the periphery, and so you are more likely to notice the flicker. You can often get this effect when sitting close to a bright (e.g., mostly white), large computer display - the bits of screen in your peripheral vision will be seen to flicker.
An unrelated but amusing visual effect … look at a computer screen while eating something (or just gnash your teeth together), and see what happens. Works best if you are some distance away…