Stroboscopic Motion

The perception of movement, or stroboscopic motion, is the illusion of movement in the brain. The brain perceives continuous movement from a series of pictures shown in rapid succession with slight variance between them. This rapid succession creates the illusion of smooth movement.

Example: Graphic Interchange Format files (GIFs) are an example of stroboscopic motion. In a GIF, a number of frames are played in rapid succession. The brain perceives this as movement, such as in the GIF below of a child sticking its face under a hand dryer.