Perceived physical and social causality in animated motions: Spontaneous reports and ratings

Schlottmann, Anne; Ray, Elizabeth; Mitchell, Ashley; Demetriou, Nathalie

doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2006.05.006

Cited by 82 publications

(147 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Dasser, Ulbaek, & Premack, 1989;Schlottmann & Shanks 1992;Baker, Saxe, & Tenenbaum, 2009). Detailed psychophysical studies showed that the perception of causality in simple displays is critically dependent on the spatial and temporal contingency of the moving discs, and specifically on their direction and relative speed, in line with Michottes' original findings (Beasley, 1968;Bassili, 1976;Schlottmann & Anderson, 1993;Dittrich & Lea, 1994;White & Milne, 1997;Blythe, Todd, & Miller, 1999;Oakes & Kannass, 1999;Schlottmann et al, 2006;Choi & Scholl, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 50%

“…One frequently discussed point is whether causality perception is based on innate mechanisms (Michotte 1946(Michotte /1963Scholl & Tremoulet, 2000;Schlottmann et al, 2006;Rips, 2011). While this question needs to be addressed thoroughly using methods from developmental psychology and potentially genetics, our computational model shows that in presence of an appropriate hierarchical architecture, relatively elementary learning-based neural mechanisms are computationally sufficient to account for some of the observed phenomena in the context of the perception of causality.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Schlottmann et al, 2006). We have not tested so far whether the same type of model can also be extended for the treatment of 'social causality', as studied in the classical displays by Heider and Simmel (1944) or Kanizsa and Vicario (1968).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Work in developmental psychology shows that this capability is present already early during development, before the age of 1 year (Leslie & Keeble, 1987;Rochat, Morgan, & Carpenter, 1997;Saxe & Carey, 2006), and that it is modifiable by learning and experience (see Schlottmann, Ray, Mitchell, & Demetriou, 2006 for a discussion). Many of Michottes' early findings on perceptual causality were replicated by other researchers (Scholl & Tremoulet, 2000), and some work has extended the study of the perception of abstract motion stimuli to the study of inferences about intentions (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Neural theory for the perception of causal actions

Fleischer

Christensen

Caggiano

et al. 2012

Psychological Research

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The efficient prediction of the behavior of others requires the recognition of their actions and an understanding of their action goals. In humans, this process is fast and extremely robust, as demonstrated by classical experiments showing that human observers reliably judge causal relationships and attribute interactive social behavior to strongly simplified stimuli consisting of simple moving geometrical shapes. While psychophysical experiments have identified critical visual features that determine the perception of causality and agency from such stimuli, the underlying detailed neural mechanisms remain largely unclear, and it is an open question why humans developed this advanced visual capability at all. We created pairs of naturalistic and abstract stimuli of hand actions that were exactly matched in terms of their motion parameters. We show that varying critical stimulus parameters for both stimulus types leads to very similar modulations of the perception of causality. However, the additional form information about the hand shape and its relationship with the object supports more fine-grained distinctions for the naturalistic stimuli. Moreover, we show that a physiologically plausible model for the recognition of goal-directed hand actions reproduces the observed dependencies of causality perception on critical stimulus parameters. These results support the hypothesis that selectivity for abstract action stimuli might emerge from the same neural mechanisms that underlie the visual processing of natural goal-directed action stimuli. Furthermore, the model proposes specific detailed neural circuits underlying this visual function, which can be evaluated in future experiments.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 50%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Neural theory for the perception of causal actions

Fleischer

Christensen

Caggiano

et al. 2012

Psychological Research

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show abstract

“…Figure 1 is a schematic representation of a typical sequence of events in a launching stimulus. Observers usually report an impression that the launcher brought about the motion of the target by colliding with it (Michotte, 1963;Scholl & Tremoulet, 2000;Schlottmann, Ray, Mitchell, & Demetriou, 2006). The occurrence of this impression depends, however, on resemblance between the properties of the motion.…”

Section: The Property Transmission Heuristicmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impetus theory in judgments about object motion: A new perspective

White

2012

Psychon Bull Rev

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Several tendencies found in explicit judgments about object motion have been interpreted as evidence that people possess a naive theory of impetus. The theory states that objects that are caused to move by other objects acquire force that determines the kind of motion exhibited by the object, and that this force gradually dissipates over time. I argue that the findings can better be understood as manifestations of a general understanding of externally caused motion based on experiences of acting on objects. Experiences of acting on objects yield the idea that properties of the cause of motion are transmitted to the effect object. This idea functions as a heuristic for explicit predictions of object motion under conditions of uncertainty. This accounts not only for the findings taken as evidence for the impetus theory, but also for several findings that fall outside the scope of the impetus theory. It has also been claimed that judgments about the location at which a moving object disappeared are influenced by the impetus theory. I argue that these judgments are better explained in a different way, as best-guess extrapolations made by the visual system as a practical guide to interactions with the object, such as interception.

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The role of the right parietal lobe in the perception of causality: a tDCS study

2011

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Inferring causality is a fundamental feature of human cognition that allows us to predict outcomes in everyday events. Here, we use direct current stimulation (tDCS) to investigate the role of the right parietal lobe in the perception of causal events. Based on the results of a previous fMRI investigation, we hypothesized that the right parietal lobe plays a specific role in the processing of spatial attributes that contribute to judgments of causality. In line with our hypothesis, we found polarization-dependent modulation of causal judgments and corresponding reaction times (RTs) for trials with increasing violation of spatial contiguity in launching events. This effect was further modulated by temporal violations, as the effect of tDCS on the use of spatial information for causality judgements was strongest for trials with high temporal violations. Thus, especially for ambiguous trials with regard to temporal patterns, cathodal stimulation led to more liberal causality judgments for trials with high angles in movement trajectory. Furthermore, we found faster RTs after anodal stimulation of the right parietal lobe. These findings suggest a reduced influence of spatial attributes on the perception of causality after cathode stimulation of the right parietal lobe and an increased processing efficiency after anodal stimuli of the same region. These data demonstrate polarization-dependent tDCS modulation of spatial processing mechanisms within the right parietal lobe that contribute to the perception of causality.

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Perceived physical and social causality in animated motions: Spontaneous reports and ratings

Cited by 82 publications

References 49 publications

Neural theory for the perception of causal actions

Neural theory for the perception of causal actions

The impetus theory in judgments about object motion: A new perspective

The role of the right parietal lobe in the perception of causality: a tDCS study

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