Toward a general theory of momentum-like effects

Abstract

The future actions, behaviors, and outcomes of objects, individuals, and processes can often be anticipated, and some of these anticipations have been hypothesized to result from momentum-like effects. Five types of momentum-like effects (representational momentum, operational momentum, attentional momentum, behavioral momentum, psychological momentum) are briefly described. Potential similarities involving properties of momentum-like effects (continuation, coherence, role of chance or guessing, role of sensory processing, imperviousness to practice or error feedback, shifts in memory for position, effects of changes in velocity, rapid occurrence, effects of retention interval, attachment to an object rather than an abstract frame of reference, nonrigid transformation) are described, and potential constraints on a future theory of momentum-like effects (dynamic representation, nature of extrapolation, sensitivity to environmental contingencies, bridging gaps between stimulus and response, increasing adaptiveness to the environment, serving as a heuristic for perception and action, insensitivity to stimulus format, importance of subjective consequences, role of knowledge and belief, automaticity of occurrence, properties of functional architecture) are discussed. The similarity and ubiquity of momentum-like effects suggests such effects might result from a single or small number of mechanisms that operate over different dimensions, modalities, and time-scales and provide a fundamental adaptation for perception and action.