Thaumatrope

Here are the Thaumatropes that we made in class on Monday. A Thaumatrope is a is a piece of card with two lengths of strings attached. Two pictures are then drawn on a side for example, a bird on one side and a cage on the other and when spun, it gives the illusion of a bird in a cage. The Thaumatrope was originally a toy invented in victorian times and up untill 1912 people believed in a theory called Persistence of vision.

This is the belief that the eye has a slight lag to it, 0.04 seconds to be exact and when the Thaumatrope spins we see the two images as one. This theory was then debunked in 1912 by Wertheimer who claimed that the real reason this illusion takes place is because of beta movement. This means that because the brain has seen two images in quick succession the brain automatically assumes a connection between them and therefore shows us, for example, a bird in a cage so the image is retained in the brain and not the eyes.