Abstract
The empirical literature on phenomenal causality (i.e., the notion that causality can be perceived) is reviewed. In Part I of this two-part series, different potential types of phenomenal causality (launching, triggering, reaction, tool, entraining, traction, braking, enforced disintegration and bursting, coordinated movement, penetration, expulsion) are described. Stimulus variables (temporal gap, spatial gap, spatial overlap, direction, absolute velocity, velocity ratio, trajectory length, radius of action, size, motion type, modality, animacy) and observer variables (attention, eye movements and fixation, prior experience, intelligence, age, culture, psychopathology) that influence phenomenal causality are reviewed. This provides the necessary background for consideration in Part II (Hubbard, in press) of broader questions regarding properties of phenomenal causality, empirical and theoretical connections of phenomenal causality to other perceptual or cognitive phenomena or processes, and potential mechanisms and models of phenomenal causality.
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Notes
Some researchers have referred to a display in which a launcher contacts an intermediary and the target moves away from the opposite end of the intermediary as a launching effect (e.g., Buehner and Humphreys 2010). Although such a display can evoke salient qualities of launching (e.g., initial target motion is attributed to the launcher), it is not a launching effect per se. In the launching effect, the launcher contacts the target and there is no spatial gap (bridged or empty) between the final location of the launcher and the initial location of the target.
Consideration of absolute velocities of the launcher and target might suggest those velocities are represented or processed relatively independently; however, Kerzel et al. (2000) reported reproductions of launcher velocity were influenced by the subsequent target velocity. Such influence occurred for causal displays and noncausal displays, and so was attributed to retroactive interference rather than to any property of perception of causality per se. Even so, it is not clear how a retroactive interference could be responsible for the differences between launching effect display and triggering effect displays found by Parovel and colleagues.
The importance of movement patterns in social perception has been demonstrated in literature on biological motion and studied using point-light displays (for review, see Blake and Shiffrar 2007), but consideration of this literature is beyond the scope of this review.
White (2006) argued the most active (i.e., moving) object is perceived to have the most causal influence (e.g., in the launching effect, the launcher is initially more active than the target, and so the launcher is perceived to have more causal influence). This is consistent with Rakison (2005) findings, but White focuses on differences in activity between different objects rather than within a single object. Even so, although the linkage of “more movement” and “more causal” might be true for many types of causal stimuli, there are exceptions (e.g., an initially stationary target that remains stationary after a launcher contacts that target and fragments is judged as more causal, Hubbard and Ruppel 2012; in the penetration impression, the stationary object is causal in that it stops the forward motion of the initially moving object).
Perception of bouncing in the paradigm used by Tschacher and Kupper (2006) is not usually considered as an example of phenomenal causality (e.g., the initial ambiguity of the display seems incongruent with phenomenal causality), and so bouncing was not included in the list of varieties of phenomenal causality discussed earlier. However, and as pointed out in Part II, it is possible additional types of phenomenal causality beyond those discussed here will be documented by future research. Determination of whether perception of bouncing is an example of perceptual causality awaits future investigation.
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Hubbard, T.L. Phenomenal Causality I: Varieties and Variables. Axiomathes 23, 1–42 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-012-9198-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-012-9198-8