To: WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2006 05:44:53 -0500
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Data processing by the human brain
From: ronkean at juno.com
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

On Sat, 23 Dec 2006 02:58:05 -0500 Ted White <twhite8 at cox.net> writes:

...> 2.  Selective processing of data.  Who looks at the *entire* screen?

>
> It's there, as it has to be, to create the Complete Picture for
> anyone
> looking around, but your average moviegoer is following only the
> central
> action on the screen -- a subset of the total data available.
>

Yes, it's clear that a human viewer cannot comprehensively take in a
broadband video signal in real time like a computer can - bit for bit,
pixel for pixel, without missing any detail.  Human vision can take a
foveal snapshot of about 20 kilopixels or so (maybe even 100
kilopixels?), and then take half a second or so to absorb the snapshot.

> 3.  Different means of processing data.  People take in things in
> the
> periphery of their vision that they may not recall in any detail,
> but
> which guide their understanding of what they're seeing.  This
> translates
> into subliminal information, or data which bypasses the intellect
> and is
> not consciously considered, but which guides one's understanding
> through
> "hunch"s or "instinct."

I would say that when people watch a movie, and more generally as they go
through daily life, they simplify (i.e. compress) the visual data they
receive, before making further use of the data.  Watching a movie, the
viewer will gaze at the face of some particular actor for a few seconds
to become familiar with the face, and thus mentally encode the face as a
unique 'icon', which is the data-compressed representation of the face in
that viewer's mind.  From then on, the viewer substitutes the icon for
that actor - the actor might just as well be a blob moving around on the
screen, the blob being labelled with a short I.D. number to distinguish
it from the other blobs on the screen.  That way, the essence of the
action on the screen can be simplified (compressed) into a data stream of
perhaps only a few thousand bits per second.

The simplifying of visual data before recording it in one's memory might
help explain the notorious unreliability of eyewitness accounts in police
investigations and criminal trials, especially where witnesses are called
upon to identify a stranger based on a fleeting glimpse.

  That leads to...
>
> 4.  Active vs. passive processing of data.  When people read or
> listen
> to words, they actively consider those words and react to their
> perception of them, and the content they convey.  But when they
> watch a
> movie, especially if it isn't heavy with talking, they are "in the
> moment" and just *experiencing* rather than thinking about that
> movie.

That's a helpful insight.  When someone reads a book, they take the
narrow band data stream of 100 bits per second which arises from reading
the text, but in the mind's eye, they expand and embellish the spare
textual data, filling in details remembered from other prior experience,
to create a rich 'movie' spooling in their imagination.  They read the
word 'horse' printed on the page, which represents mathematically, maybe
20 or 25 bits of data contextually compressed, but they may then
visualize a hundred kilobytes worth of mane, nostrils, and hooves, bit,
bridal, and saddle, ambling along a country lane.  The 'active' process
of reading, then, maywould result in an effective data stream (in the
mind's eye) far faster than the 100 bit per second text reading rate.

On the other hand, in passively viewing of a movie, with millions of bits
per second washing over the viewer, only a few thousand bits per second
may actually register in the viewer's mind's eye.

So there may be a convergence of the two cases (reading versus watching a
movie), where the effective data rate, at the level of what the mind
sees, is not much different between the two.

Ron Kean

.