Judgments about forces in described interactions between objects.

Abstract

In 4 experiments, participants made judgments about forces exerted and resistances put up by objects involved in described interactions. Two competing hypotheses were tested: (1) that judgments are derived from the same knowledge base that is thought to be the source of perceptual impressions of forces that occur with visual stimuli, and (2) that judgments are generated using simple models or heuristics for deriving force judgments from kinematic information. The results show some similarities with perceptual impression research, particularly that an active object is judged to exert more force on an inactive object than the latter exerts on the former. However, most of the available kinematic information had little or no effect on judgment, supporting the hypothesis that force judgments are generated according to simple rules. Presentation of information about damage to the objects resulted in use of all available kinds of information; this could reflect greater imageability of damage information than kinematic information.

The experience of force: The role of haptic experience of forces in visual perception of object motion and interactions, mental simulation, and motion-related judgments.

“…Kozhevnikov and Hegarty (2001) found a dissociation between displacement effects and explicit physical knowledge in participants who were expert in the relevant physics, as well as in those who were not. This result is typical of many findings showing dissociation between perceptual phenomena and conceptual knowledge (White, 2011; Zago & Lacquaniti, 2005). Conceptually based inferences are of course open to influence from acquired knowledge, education, personal theories, and judgmental heuristics.…”

Judgements about the relation between force and trajectory variables in verbally described ballistic projectile motion

“…While most previous studies have been concerned with properties such as mass and momentum, the present study is concerned more with forces exerted by one body on another. It supports an argument that variables that cannot be clearly related to the terms of the heuristic tend to be ignored in making judgements about forces; it also shows that judgements about forces are made in a consistent and systematic manner, supporting the contention that people do possess intuitive notions of force, or at least that they have acquired rules for making inferences about forces (see also White, 2011).…”

“…Perceived force exerted by the moving ball on the stationary one was greater with higher speeds of the latter after contact. In White (2011), I presented verbal descriptions of the same kind of collision event, and explicit judgements of force were higher with higher speeds of the second ball after contact. Kotovsky and Baillargeon (1998) found that infants aged around six months were surprised when a small cylinder rolling down a ramp made an object it contacted move further than a medium-sized object had done, but were not surprised when a larger object did so.…”

Causal reasoning with forces

“…The forces may be physical, psychological (e.g., intentions), or social (e.g., peer pressure) (Talmy, 1988 ; Wolff, 2007 ; Copley and Harley, 2014 ). It is assumed that people are able to conduct partial reenactments of the processes that join forces in the world (see Wolff and Zettergren, 2002 ; Wolff, 2007 ; White, 2011 , 2012 ; Hubbard, 2013b , c ). A reenactment involves specifying the objects and the forces acting on those objects as well as carrying out a simulation.…”