There is an illusion of movement of the opposite sort, with which every
one is familiar at _railway stations_. Habitually, when we ourselves
move forward, our entire field of view glides backward over our retina.
When our movement is due to that of the windowed carriage, car, or boat
in which we sit, all stationary objects visible through the window give
us a sensation of gliding in the opposite direction. Hence, whenever we
get this sensation, of a window with _all_ objects visible through it
moving in one direction, we react upon it in our customary way, and
perceive a stationary field of view, over which the window, and we
ourselves inside of it, are passing by a motion of our own. Consequently
when another train comes alongside of ours in a station, and fills the
entire window, and, after standing still awhile, begins to glide away,
we judge that it is _our_ train which is moving, and that the other
train is still. If, however, we catch a glimpse of any part of the
station through the windows, or between the cars, of the other train,
the illusion of our own movement instantly disappears, and we perceive
the other train to be the one in motion. This, again, is but making the
usual and probable inference from our sensation.
_Another illusion due to movement_ is explained by Helmholtz. Most
wayside objects, houses, trees, etc., look small when seen from the
windows of a swift train. This is because we perceive them in the first
instance unduly near. And we perceive them unduly near because of their
extraordinarily rapid parallactic flight backwards. When we ourselves
move forward all objects glide backwards, as aforesaid; but the nearer
they are, the more rapid is this apparent translocation. Relative
rapidity of passage backwards is thus so familiarly associated with
nearness that when we feel it we perceive nearness. But with a given
size of retinal image the nearer an object is, the smaller do we judge
its actual size to be. Hence in the train, the faster we go, the nearer
do the trees and houses seem; and the nearer they seem, the smaller
(with that size of retinal image) must they look.
The feelings of our eyes' convergence, of their accommodation, the size
of the retinal image, etc., may give rise to illusions about the size
and distance of objects, which also belong to this first type.
=Illusions of the Second Type.=--In this type we perceive a wrong object
because our mind is full of the thought of it at the time, and any
sensation which is in the least degree connected with it touches off, as
it were, a train already laid, and gives us a sense that the object is
really before us. Here is a familiar example:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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