It has been estimated that the brain (yeah, not the eyes) processes about 24 frames per second. I'm not sure if there have been more recent studies into this, but the origin of this idea is that movies that showed less than 24 frames per second in the very debut of cinema made a lot of people regurgitate (to use the more polite way of saying what I have read). By experimenting, they had concluded that 24 frames per second kept the audience in their seat while keeping the length of reels as short (therefore less costly) as possible.
This number is definitely debatable, but there is definite evidence that we cannot perceive more than a certain number of "pictures per second" if we compare to how movies are displayed on screen or on TV's or computer monitors. I did phrase it "a little like tiny cameras" and "about 24 frames per second" on purpose.
The brain can only process about 24 frames per second? Wow. I must be from a different species, then
In fact, a lot of people must be. I mean why else would we even have 120Hz monitors? And 144Hz? Madness!
Why do TV movies at 30fps look different, than cinema 24fps ones? Why did people find The Hobbit's 48fps weird? Why even film and show it at 48 if 24 is all our brains can process? You talk about TV and movies, but never mention games. Maybe you're not a gamer. I am. If my eyes or brain only processed 24fps, I wouldn't have to buy expensive hardware to run games at >60, preferably >100. 30, 60, 100fps - there's a very noticeable difference to me.
In other words, it's a difficult subject, but neither our eyes nor brain are capped at 24 fps. That's why I think this claim should be removed. For someone who knows absolutely nothing about the subject reading this article would be highly misleading. The eyes don't "take pictures", they provide a continuos stream of data. The brain does not "take those images and assemble them into what we perceive as the continuous movie of our lives".
Please don't be offended, I hope it doesn't looks like I'm attacking you, I just don't like to see wrong or debatable data being presented as true fact and potentially misleading people in an otherwise good article.
If I were you, I'd drop the whole paragraph about 24 frames per second, it only adds to confusion. You explained it later: "The lower frequency PWM will be more perceivable to the eyes as a fast strobe effect – remember what it looks like to dance in a club when the only lighting around are strobes? Well, imagine that strobe is even faster, to the point that motion is almost continuous...
".
