Dazzle Camouflage Affects Speed Perception

This article describes how movement is considered to be the enemy of camouflage, meaning most attempts at concealment are disrupted by motion of the target. Navy ships in both World Wars in the twentieth century were faced with this problem and painted their warships with high contrast geometric patterns called ‘‘dazzle camouflage’’. It was claimed that this patterning would disrupt the perception of their range, heading, size, shape and speed, and would reduce losses from torpedo attacks by submarines. Similar arguments had been advanced earlier for biological camouflage. While there are good reasons to believe that most of these perceptual distortions may have occurred, there is no evidence for the last claim of changing perceived speed. Here, the authors show that dazzle patterns can distort speed perception, and that this effect is greatest at high speeds. The effect should help predators launching ballistic attacks against rapidly moving prey, or modern, low-tech battlefields where handheld weapons are fired from short ranges against moving vehicles. In the latter case, the authors demonstrate that in a typical situation involving an RPG7 attack on a Land Rover, the reduction in perceived speed is sufficient to make the grenade miss where it was aimed by about a meter, which could be the difference between survival or not for the occupants of the vehicle.

• Record URL:
  http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObjectAttachment.action;jsessionid=5B483A737DBD6D656511DDFEDE50B1DA.ambra02?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0020233&representation=PDF
• 
• Authors:
  • Scott-Samuel, Nicholas E
  • Baddeley, Roland
  • Palmer, Chloe E
  • Cuthill, Innes C
• Publication Date: 2011-6

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Figures; Photos; References;
• Pagination: 5p
• Serial:
  • PLoS One
  • Volume: 6
  • Issue Number: 6
  • Publisher: Public Library of Science
  • EISSN: 1932-6203
  • Serial URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
• Publication flags:

  Open Access (libre)

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Distance perception; Military vessels; Navy personnel; Perception; Speed; Visibility; Water transportation
• Subject Areas: Marine Transportation; Operations and Traffic Management; Security and Emergencies; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01345363
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jul 21 2011 10:08AM