Cited by T. Quick, 'Disciplining Physiological Psychology: Cinematographs as Epistemic Devices, 1897-1922', Science in Context 30 (4), pp. 423-474.
Description:

'As historians of cinematography have noted, 'the' cinematograph has never existed as such. Rather, a range of illusion-generating mechanisms emerged during the nineteenth century, and culminated in the production of various means by which successive images might be inscribed and displayed (Mannoni [1994] 2000; Gunning [1986] 2006).'

 

'Sherrington's initial foray into the study of visual sensations, published in 1897, relied on an illusion-generating device in the shape of a multi-colored disc that could be rotated to produce the sensation of a single color. This suggested a direct parallel between two phenomena that had been current amongst philosophers of optics since the eighteenth century (Wade 2005, 112–116; Mannoni [1994] 2000, 204–212).' (453-454)

 

'Within the German context especially, a set of physiological problems associated with these phenomena emerged that considered the processes by which stimulation of the eye actually resulted in visual experience (Schickore 2006, 123-126) One particularly prominent theme was the fact, embodied by the motion-sensation-generating phenakistoscope (and later Muybridge's zoopraxiscope), that a series of short stimulations could, through the phenomena of 'persistence of vision', create an illusion of temporal continuity (Mannoni [1994] 2000, 213-222).'