People make simple physical inferences by acting on objects. They might, for example, tilt a container to determine its chances of spilling. Five experiments examined whether people can also draw physical inferences by taking simulated actions. The basic experimental task involved 2 glasses of different widths but equal heights. People imagined that the glasses were filled to the same level with water and answered whether they would spill at the same or different angles. When asked explicitly, people were usually wrong; but, when they closed their eyes and tilted each glass until the imagined water reached the rim, they correctly tilted a narrow glass farther than a wide one. These experiments dissociated simulated actions from both propositional inferences and visual imagery. The results suggest a new emphasis on the role of motor activity in drawing inferences and address issues related to joining naive intuitions and explicit understandings.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.