Violations of visual simultaneity

Perception of Temporal Order of Flashing Lights as a Navigation AID

“…The occurrence of this asynchrony would alert the navigator that he was off course and in which direction; he would then alter course until the lights were again flashing simultaneously. Uttal (1970) has pointed out that the notion of simultaneity can have both a "strong" and a "weak" meaning. The weak definition is the set of responses to the question, "Were two stimuli perceived to occur at the same time?".…”

“…The strong definition implies that stimuli are perceived as simultaneous because the information about their temporal order is actually lost in the nervous system. Uttal (1970) has argued that since there is much evidence that such information is not lost, the perception of simultaneity should not be considered a fundamental biological limitation, but should be defined operationally by the particular method used to measure it.…”