Spatial Structure From Temporal Structure: Rotation

"Vertical" 100% (rotational motion)

Each circular patch contains a "windmill" and each windmill rotates either clockwise or counterclockwise, with its starting direction of rotation determined randomly. Changes in direction of rotation are stochastic events that can be defined by a point process. The correlation among point processes of windmills within a virtual region (vertically elongated in this demonstration) can be varied; in this example all windmills within the virtual region obey the same point process and those outside this area ("background") each follow their own point process. The correlation in the central figure, then, is 1.00 and the correlation in the background is 0.00.


In this next demonstration, the correlation of changes in direction of rotation is 1.00 in the figure and 1.00 in the background, with the correlation between figure and background elements being 0.00. If anything, figure/ground segmentation is even stronger.


 

Return to text