Ratings of causality and force in launching and shattering

Exploring the influence of self-identification on perceptual judgments of physical and social causality

People tend to overestimate the causal contribution of the self to the observed outcome in various situations, a cognitive bias known as the 'illusion of control.' This study delves into whether this cognitive bias impacts causality judgments in animations depicting physical and social causal interactions. In two experiments, participants were instructed to associate themselves and a hypothetical stranger identity with two geometrical shapes (a circle and a square). Subsequently, they viewed animations portraying these shapes assuming the roles of agent and patient in causal interactions. Within one block, the shape related to the self served as the agent, while the shape associated with the stranger played the role of the patient. Conversely, in the other block, the identity-role association was reversed. We posited that the perception of the self as a causal agent might influence explicit judgments of physical and social causality. Experiment 1 demonstrated that physical causality ratings were solely shaped by kinematic cues. In Experiment 2, emphasising social causality, the dominance of kinematic parameters was confirmed. Therefore, contrary to the hypothesis anticipating diminished causality ratings with specific identity-role associations, results indicated negligible impact of our manipulation. The study contributes to understanding the interplay between kinematic and non-kinematic cues in human causal reasoning. It suggests that explicit judgments of causality in simple animations primarily rely on low-level kinematic cues, with the cognitive bias of overestimating the self's contribution playing a negligible role.

Grounding Intuitive Physics in Perceptual Experience

This review article explores the foundation of laypeople's understanding of the physical world rooted in perceptual experience. Beginning with a concise historical overview of the study of intuitive physics, the article presents the hypothesis that laypeople possess accurate internalized representations of physical laws. A key aspect of this hypothesis is the contention that correct representations of physical laws emerge in ecological experimental conditions, where the scenario being examined resembles everyday life experiences. The article critically examines empirical evidence both supporting and challenging this claim, revealing that despite everyday-life-like conditions, fundamental misconceptions often persist. Many of these misconceptions can be attributed to a domain-general heuristic that arises from the overgeneralization of perceptual-motor experiences with physical objects. To conclude, the article delves into ongoing controversies and highlights promising future avenues in the field of intuitive physics, including action-judgment dissociations, insights from developmental psychology, and computational models integrating artificial intelligence.

The psychophysics of bouncing: Perceptual constraints, physical constraints, animacy, and phenomenal causality

In the present study we broadly explored the perception of physical and animated motion in bouncing-like scenarios through four experiments. In the first experiment, participants were asked to categorize bouncing-like displays as physical bounce, animated motion, or other. Several parameters of the animations were manipulated, that is, the simulated coefficient of restitution, the value of simulated gravitational acceleration, the motion pattern (uniform acceleration/deceleration or constant speed) and the number of bouncing cycles. In the second experiment, a variable delay at the moment of the collision between the bouncing object and the bouncing surface was introduced. Main results show that, although observers appear to have realistic representations of physical constraints like energy conservation and gravitational acceleration/deceleration, the amount of visual information available in the scene has a strong modulation effect on the extent to which they rely on these representations. A coefficient of restitution >1 was a crucial cue to animacy in displays showing three bouncing cycles, but not in displays showing one bouncing cycle. Additionally, bouncing impressions appear to be driven by perceptual constraints that are unrelated to the physical realism of the scene, like preference for simulated gravitational attraction smaller than g and perceived temporal contiguity between the different phases of bouncing. In the third experiment, the visible opaque bouncing surface was removed from the scene, and the results showed that this did not have any substantial effect on the resulting impressions of physical bounce or animated motion, suggesting that the visual system can fill-in the scene with the missing element. The fourth experiment explored visual impressions of causality in bouncing scenarios. At odds with claims of current causal perception theories, results indicate that a passive object can be perceived as the direct cause of the motion behavior of an active object.

The possibility of an impetus heuristic

Evidence consistent with a belief in impetus is drawn from studies of naïve physics, perception of causality, perception of force, and representational momentum, and the possibility of an impetus heuristic is discussed. An impetus heuristic suggests the motion path of an object that was previously constrained or influenced by an external source (e.g., object, force) appears to exhibit the same constraint or influence even after that constraint or influence is removed. Impetus is not a valid physical principle, but use of an impetus heuristic can in some circumstances provide approximately correct predictions regarding future object motion, and such predictions require less cognitive effort and resources than would predictions based upon objective physical principles. The relationship of an impetus heuristic to naïve impetus theory and to objective physical principles is discussed, and use of an impetus heuristic significantly challenges claims that causality or force can be visually perceived. Alternatives to an impetus heuristic are considered, and potential boundary conditions and falsification of the impetus notion are discussed. Overall, use of an impetus heuristic offers a parsimonious explanation for findings across a wide range of perceptual domains and could potentially be extended to more metaphorical types of motion.

Persuasive Features of Scientific Explanations: Explanatory Schemata of Physical and Psychosocial Phenomena

Explanations are central to understanding the causal relationships between entities within the environment. Instead of examining basic heuristics and schemata that inform the acceptance or rejection of scientific explanations, recent studies have predominantly examined complex explanatory models. In the present study, we examined which essential features of explanatory schemata can account for phenomena that are attributed to domain-specific knowledge. In two experiments, participants judged the validity of logical syllogisms and reported confidence in their response. In addition to validity of the explanations, we manipulated whether scientists or people explained an animate or inanimate phenomenon using mechanistic (e.g., force, cause) or intentional explanatory terms (e.g., believes, wants). Results indicate that intentional explanations were generally considered to be less valid than mechanistic explanations and that 'scientists' were relatively more reliable sources of information of inanimate phenomena whereas 'people' were relatively more reliable sources of information of animate phenomena. Moreover, after controlling for participants' performance, we found that they expressed greater overconfidence for valid intentional and invalid mechanistic explanations suggesting that the effect of belief-bias is greater in these conditions.

The Causal and Force Perception and Their Perceived Asymmetries in Flight Collisions

The present study was to investigate causal perception and force perception in ecological objects. Four experiments were designed to compare the perceived causality and force of one of the two objects on the other by changing the property of one or both of the objects involved in the launching effect. Our results support causal asymmetry and force asymmetry, in which the launcher has a greater causal effect and exerts more force on the target. Furthermore, we also found that, the ecological object, which is the airplane in this study, had a greater causal effect and exerted more force, resulting in strengthened asymmetries when the airplane acted as the launcher and weakened asymmetries when the airplane acted as the target. The properties of the object also impacted causal perception by attenuating the effect of the temporal gap on causality. Those results indicate that the airplane is perceived as the main cause for a collision compared with an abstract object. The influence of conceptual knowledge of the object and the sense of agency on changing the degree of perceived causality and force in a particular motion pattern was discussed.

Retinotopic adaptation reveals distinct categories of causal perception

We can perceive not only low-level features of events such as color and motion, but also seemingly higher-level properties such as causality. A prototypical example of causal perception is the 'launching effect': one object (A) moves toward a stationary second object (B) until they are adjacent, at which point A stops and B starts moving in the same direction. Beyond these motions themselves - and regardless of any higher-level beliefs - this display induces a vivid visual impression of causality, wherein A is seen to cause B's motion. Do such percepts reflect a unitary category of visual processing, or might there be multiple distinct forms of causal perception? While launching is often simply equated with causal perception, researchers have sometimes described other phenomena such as 'triggering' (in which B moves faster than A) and 'entraining' (in which A continues to move alongside B). We used psychophysical methods to determine whether these labels really carve visual processing at its joints, and how putatively different forms of causal perception relate to each other. Previous research demonstrated retinotopically specific adaptation to causality: exposure to causal launching makes subsequent ambiguous events in that same location more likely to be seen as non-causal 'passing'. Here, after replicating this effect, we show that exposure to triggering also yields retinotopically specific adaptation for subsequent ambiguous launching displays, but that exposure to entraining does not. Collectively, these results reveal that visual processing distinguishes some (but not all) types of causal interactions.

The space contraction asymmetry in Michotte's launching effect

Previous studies have found that, compared with noncausal events, spatial contraction exists between the causal object and the effect object due to the perceived causality. The present research aims to examine whether the causal object and the effect object have the same effect on spatial contraction. A modified launching effect, in which a bar bridges the spatial gap between the final position of the launcher and the initial position of the target, was adopted. Experiment 1 validates the absolute underestimation of the bar's length between the launcher and the target. Experiment 2a finds that in the direct launching effect, the perceived position of the bar's trailing edge that was contacted by the final launcher was displaced along the objects' direction of movement. Meanwhile, the perceived position of the bar's leading edge that was contacted by the initial target was displaced in opposite direction to the moving direction. The magnitude of the former's displacement was significantly larger than that of the latter, displaying a significant contraction asymmetry. Experiment 2b demonstrates that the contraction asymmetry did not result from the launcher remaining in contact with the edge of the bar. Experiment 3 indicates that contraction asymmetry showed a type of postdictive effect; that is, to some extent, this asymmetry depends on what happens after contact. In conclusion, the space between the causal object and effect object contracts asymmetrically in the launching effect, which implies that the causal object and effect object are perceived as shifting toward each other nonequidistantly in visual space.

Causal reports: Context-dependent contributions of intuitive physics and visual impressions of launching

Everyday causal reports appear to be based on a blend of perceptual and cognitive processes. Causality can sometimes be perceived automatically through low-level visual processing of stimuli, but it can also be inferred on the basis of an intuitive understanding of the physical mechanism that underlies an observable event. We investigated how visual impressions of launching and the intuitive physics of collisions contribute to the formation of explicit causal responses. In Experiment 1, participants observed collisions between realistic objects differing in apparent material and hence implied mass, whereas in Experiment 2, participants observed collisions between abstract, non-material objects. The results of Experiment 1 showed that ratings of causality were mainly driven by the intuitive physics of collisions, whereas the results of Experiment 2 provide some support to the hypothesis that ratings of causality were mainly driven by visual impressions of launching. These results suggest that stimulus factors and experimental design factors - such as the realism of the stimuli and the variation in the implied mass of the colliding objects - may determine the relative contributions of perceptual and post-perceptual cognitive processes to explicit causal responses. A revised version of the impetus transmission heuristic provides a satisfactory explanation for these results, whereas the hypothesis that causal responses and intuitive physics are based on the internalization of physical laws does not.

Perceived causality, force, and resistance in the absence of launching

In the launching effect, a moving object (the launcher) contacts a stationary object (the target), and upon contact, the launcher stops and the target begins moving in the same direction and at the same or slower velocity as previous launcher motion (Michotte, 1946/1963). In the study reported here, participants viewed a modified launching effect display in which the launcher stopped before or at the moment of contact and the target remained stationary. Participants rated perceived causality, perceived force, and perceived resistance of the launcher on the target or the target on the launcher. For launchers and for targets, increases in the size of the spatial gap between the final location of the launcher and the location of the target decreased ratings of perceived causality and ratings of perceived force and increased ratings of perceived resistance. Perceived causality, perceived force, and perceived resistance exhibited gradients or fields extending from the launcher and from the target and were not dependent upon contact of the launcher and target. Causal asymmetries and force asymmetries reported in previous studies did not occur, and this suggests that such asymmetries might be limited to typical launching effect stimuli. Deviations from Newton's laws of motion are noted, and the existence of separate radii of action extending from the launcher and from the target is suggested.

Causal agency and the perception of force

In the Michotte task, a ball (X) moves toward a resting ball (Y). In the moment of contact, X stops und Y starts moving. Previous studies have shown that subjects tend to view X as the causal agent ("X launches Y") rather than Y ("Y stops X"). Moreover, X tends to be attributed more force than Y (force asymmetry), which contradicts the laws of Newtonian mechanics. Recent theories of force asymmetry try to explain these findings as the result of an asymmetrical identification with either the (stronger) agent or the (weaker) patient of the causal interaction. We directly tested this assumption by manipulating attributions of causal agency while holding the properties of the causal interaction constant across conditions. In contrast to previous accounts, we found that force judgments stayed invariant across conditions in which assignments of causal agency shifted from X to Y and that even those subjects who chose Y as the causal agent gave invariantly higher force ratings to X. These results suggest that causal agency and the perception of force are conceptually independent of each other. Different possible explanations are discussed.