Adjusting your Computer's speed to your Monitor's speed: Most monitors cannot paint accurately faster than 66 to 77 frames per second (fps). Click on the Use Speed radio button and then set the Delay (between iterations) slider so that when you push the Play button the fps indicator (next to the Play controls) falls somewhere between 25 and 66 fps. In that range you should experience apparent motion effects. If your computer is slow, you may not need to use the Speed control. NOTE: Changing Window Size changes fps (smaller windows paint at a higher speed in fps), so you may have to adjust speed when you change Window Size.

Basin Length = 50. There are no sub-basins.

When you press Play, a small dynamic system begins running in your computer's circuitry. As a biological being, one of your puzzles is to find a way to extract patterns from the dynamic universe around you.

As detailed on previous pages (currently under construction) the applet to the left visualizes the dynamics of the system that is running on your computer by painting several iterations all at once on the screen. The number of iterations it prints is determined by the Window Size that you select.

Window Size = 100. This particular dynamic system loads in a basin whose length is fifty (L = 50). Since the default window size when Play is pushed and the applet starts is 100 (an interger mulitple of 50) you see no apparent motion: The image looks static. In fact the system is running. The fps at which it is running is indicated next to the Play controls.

Changing Window Size. To see apparent motion, begin to move the Window Size slider so that you are painting a smaller number of iterations in the window. The image that was static when the window size was 100 iterations will begin to move.

Window Size = 75. A particularly interesting case results when you set Window Size to 75 iterations. (Make sure the fps are still in the range 25 to 66 when you change Window Size.) Press Play. You should see a static black pattern in front of a pulsing grey background. You may perceive sense of depth with the forground pattern in front of the background pattern. Press Stop. Press Play again. Alternate Play and Stop several times. Notice that when the system is playing a particular black pattern emerges that is a subset of the black basin structure evident when the system is stopped. That is, a Window Size of 75 extracts through apparent motion certain shapes from the overall shape of the basin structure. That is, that part of your perceptual neurology that creates the illusion of apparent motion can use apparent motion to extract a subset of pattern from the dynamic systems you are perceiving. Notice that these patterns are not sub-basins, so here we are not extracting sub-basin patterns, but a more subtle kinds of patterns.

Other Window Sizes. Changing Window Size changes the quality of apparent motion. Move the Window Size to other values, say between 50 and 75 or between 75 and 100. You will see many dynamic patterns, somewhat like liquiud flow in a stream. When you change Window Size you will see accompanying shifts in the dynamic patterns. So the changing qualities of apparent motion seem to extract different pattens the dynamics of a system.