Perception Of Causality Research Articles

“Perception of Personal Causality” by College Students

La “percepción de causalidad personal” se ha estudiado con palomas al apagar una tecla de forma dependiente o independiente al picoteo a dicha tecla. Entonces, se ilumina una tecla a cada lado. Las palomas deben picar una tecla después de un cambio de estímulos (CE) dependiente o la otra tecla después de un CE independiente. Se ha observado que la precisión de la percepción de causalidad personal de las palomas disminuye al alargar la demora entre las respuestas y los CE dependientes. En el presente estudio se replicó este procedimiento con humanos para averiguar si la demora entre las respuestas y los CE dependientes determina la percepción de causalidad personal en humanos de manera similar que en palomas. La demora varió entre 0, 0.5, 1, 2 y 4 s. Los aciertos de los humanos disminuyeron al alargar la demora de forma similar que con las palomas. Las curvas Características Operativas del Receptor no mostraron sesgos sistemáticos en los reportes de los participantes conforme se alargó la demora. Se concluyó que las palomas y los humanos discriminan entre CE dependientes e independientes a sus respuestas con base en el tiempo entre su última respuesta y el CE, conforme a una discriminación condicional.

Simple visual stimuli are sufficient to drive responses in action observation and execution neurons in macaque ventral premotor cortex.

Neurons responding during action execution and action observation were discovered in the ventral premotor cortex 3 decades ago. However, the visual features that drive the responses of action observation/execution neurons (AOENs) have not been revealed at present. We investigated the neural responses of AOENs in ventral premotor area F5c of 4 macaques during the observation of action videos and crucial control stimuli. The large majority of AOENs showed highly phasic responses during the action videos, with a preference for the moment that the hand made contact with the object. They also responded to an abstract shape moving towards but not interacting with an object, even when the shape moved on a scrambled background, implying that most AOENs in F5c do not require the perception of causality or a meaningful action. Additionally, the majority of AOENs responded to static frames of the videos. Our findings show that very elementary stimuli, even without a grasping context, are sufficient to drive responses in F5c AOENs.

Correction to "Improving causality perception judgments in schizophrenia spectrum disorder via transcranial direct current stimulation".

Correction to "Improving causality perception judgments in schizophrenia spectrum disorder via transcranial direct current stimulation".

Does language shape the way we think? A review of the foreign language effect across domains

Purpose and research question: This review investigates the influence of the foreign language effect (FLE) on moral decision-making, risk aversion, and causality perception. Recent research indicates that bilinguals employ different decision-making strategies according to the language in use (first vs. second language). Methodology: Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol, we conducted a comprehensive literature review. Our analysis focused on empirical studies, yielding 28 articles that met our inclusion criteria. Findings and conclusions: Our findings reveal that participants, when operating in a foreign language context, are more inclined to accept harm for improved outcomes, exhibit reduced risk aversion, and display moderated causal perceptions, particularly in emotionally charged contexts. The variability in study conclusions can be attributed to factors such as age, personality, language proficiency, and linguistic characteristics. Significance: Our results support previous findings in the FLE, highlight limitations, and provide suggestions for future research.

The attribution of causality, perception of responsibility, and preferred generic means of life distribution

The attribution of causality, a central concept in human cognition theory, is the principal instrument for investigating functional links between events and phenomena. Although the links between causality and moral responsibility are commonly recognized, the scope of studies analysing the practical implications of causality attribution is minimal. This study examines the effect of causality perception on the desired distribution of the generic means of life by utilising thought experiment data collection methodology and non-parametric statistical analysis. The results indicate that: (i) causality perception affects the desired distribution, and (ii) individuals show no tendency to modify their perception of causality.

An approximate representation of objects underlies physical reasoning.

People make fast and reasonable predictions about the physical behavior of everyday objects. To do so, people may use principled mental shortcuts, such as object simplification, similar to models developed by engineers for real-time physical simulations. We hypothesize that people use simplified object approximations for tracking and action (the body representation), as opposed to fine-grained forms for visual recognition (the shape representation). We used three classic psychophysical tasks (causality perception, time-to-collision, and change detection) in novel settings that dissociate body and shape. People's behavior across tasks indicates that they rely on coarse bodies for physical reasoning, which lies between convex hulls and fine-grained shapes. Our empirical and computational findings shed light on basic representations people use to understand everyday dynamics, and how these representations differ from those used for recognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Gaining confidence in Michotte’s classic studies on the perception of causality

Gaining confidence in Michotte’s classic studies on the perception of causality

The psychophysics of bouncing: Perceptual constraints, physical constraints, animacy, and phenomenal causality.

In the present study we broadly explored the perception of physical and animated motion in bouncing-like scenarios through four experiments. In the first experiment, participants were asked to categorize bouncing-like displays as physical bounce, animated motion, or other. Several parameters of the animations were manipulated, that is, the simulated coefficient of restitution, the value of simulated gravitational acceleration, the motion pattern (uniform acceleration/deceleration or constant speed) and the number of bouncing cycles. In the second experiment, a variable delay at the moment of the collision between the bouncing object and the bouncing surface was introduced. Main results show that, although observers appear to have realistic representations of physical constraints like energy conservation and gravitational acceleration/deceleration, the amount of visual information available in the scene has a strong modulation effect on the extent to which they rely on these representations. A coefficient of restitution >1 was a crucial cue to animacy in displays showing three bouncing cycles, but not in displays showing one bouncing cycle. Additionally, bouncing impressions appear to be driven by perceptual constraints that are unrelated to the physical realism of the scene, like preference for simulated gravitational attraction smaller than g and perceived temporal contiguity between the different phases of bouncing. In the third experiment, the visible opaque bouncing surface was removed from the scene, and the results showed that this did not have any substantial effect on the resulting impressions of physical bounce or animated motion, suggesting that the visual system can fill-in the scene with the missing element. The fourth experiment explored visual impressions of causality in bouncing scenarios. At odds with claims of current causal perception theories, results indicate that a passive object can be perceived as the direct cause of the motion behavior of an active object.

Improving causality perception judgments in schizophrenia spectrum disorder via transcranial direct current stimulation.

Deficient causality perception and attribution may underlie key symptoms of schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD), such as delusions and ideas of reference. Although transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) can increase the influence of spatial information on perceptual causality judgments among healthy participants, its effect among patients with SSD remains unknown. We sought to determine whether tDCS modulates the contribution of stimulus characteristics to perceptual causality judgments among patients with SSD; we predicted that right parietal tDCS would increase the influence of spatial stimulus characteristics on patients' causality perception. Patients with SSD received frontal, parietal, frontoparietal and sham tDCS in 4 separate sessions. Pre- and post-tDCS, patients viewed video clips of ball A colliding with ball B. Spatial linearity (ball B's angle of egress) and temporal contiguity (delay between collision and ball B's movement) varied parametrically. After each launching event, patients rated perceived causality. Among 19 patients with SSD, we found a brain region-dependent effect of tDCS regarding sensitivity to violations of spatial linearity. After right parietal anodal tDCS, the influence of angle variations on patients' perceptual causality judgments increased, reflected by a higher probability of perceived causality for stimuli with small angles and a lower probability of perceived causality for stimuli with high angles. Transcranial direct current stimulation increased the influence of spatial stimulus characteristics on causality perception among patients with SSD. Future research should explore potential links between tDCS-induced changes in basic perceptual processes and clinical symptoms, such as delusions and ideas of reference.

The causal mind: An affordance-based account of causal engagement

Causal cognition is a core aspect of how we deal with the world; however, existing psychological theories tend not to target intuitive causal engagement that is done in daily life. To fill this gap, we propose an Ecological-Enactive (E-E) affordance-based account of situated causal engagement, that is, causal judgments and perceptions. We develop this account to improve our understanding of this way of dealing with the world, which includes making progress on the causal selection problem, and to extend the scope of embodied cognitive science to causal cognition. We characterize identifying causes as selectively attending to the relevant ecological information to engage with relevant affordances, where these affordances are dependent on individual abilities. Based on this we construe causal engagement as based on a learned skill. Moreover, we argue that to understand judgments of causation as we make them in our daily lives, we need to see them as situated in sociocultural practices. Practices are about doing, and so this view helps us understand why people make these judgments so ubiquitously: to get things done, to provide an effective path to intervening in the world. Ultimately this view on causal engagement allows us to account for individual differences in causal perceptions, judgments, and selections by appealing to differences in learned skills and sociocultural practices.

THE EFFECT OF CORPORATE IMAGE AND PRICE FAIRNESS ON GOJEK USER LOYALTY AND SATISFACTION

<p>This study aims to realize the influence of tariffs, and company image related to customer loyalty of online-based public transportation services to Gojek customers. The process model used during this research is the perception of causality and the perception of causality and the number of respondents in this study is 120 respondents. In research conducted based on perceived causality (perceived causality) according to a partial way a significant effect on customer loyalty. The results of this study prove that the company's image affects customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, therefore it affects positively on the fairness of a price.</p>

Adults' Experiences with Type 2 Diabetes in Rural Guatemala: A Qualitative Study.

Given that the diabetes burden is rising rapidly in low- and middle-income countries, it is critical to understand perspectives of people living with diabetes in these settings. This qualitative study examines perceptions of causality and treatment among adults with type 2 diabetes in rural Indigenous communities of Guatemala. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 29 people living with type 2 diabetes from a population survey in two majority Indigenous Guatemalan towns. Data were coded inductively and themes were elucidated by consensus. Participants emphasized strong emotional experiences and stress as perceived causes of diabetes, as well as diet and heritability. All participants took biopharmaceutical treatments, but many also endorsed diet, exercise, herbal remedies, and naturopathic products as important remedies. Perspectives from people living with diabetes in two rural Indigenous towns in Guatemala differ from the biomedical model of disease and have implications for clinical practice and program development.

Strategies of Naturalistic Explanation of Moral Responsibility: Compatibilism and Eliminativism

The article explores the intuition of moral responsibility from a naturalistic perspective. The aim of the article was to analyse what possible naturalistic approaches to the concept of moral responsibility are possible from a neurophilosophical point of view. The aim is to revisit the concept of moral responsibility in order to remove the libertarian and classical compatibilist intuition and move towards a naturalistic explanation. This study shows that the intuition of moral responsibility is based on the fact that the human brain is endowed with two different parallel systems of perception of causality. With this empirical evidence in mind, two possible strategies for a naturalistic explanation of moral responsibility are proposed, conceptualised as neurophilosophical compatibilism (NC) and neurophilosophical eliminativism (NE). The first NC strategy is defended by an epistemic argument which argues that knowing exactly how someone is determined is fundamentally limited, and so we should not base our ideas about moral responsibility on actual compatibilist control alone. The second strategy of NE is divided on the strength of the elimination of moral responsibility: either the whole concept of moral responsibility or only its ontological reality is eliminated. In the first option, we are faced with the need to develop an alternative system of punishment, law and overcoming the persistent intuition of moral responsibility. In the second scenario, the preservation of moral responsibility as an emergent functional property is accepted and a total reduction to ontological naturalism or, in the case of an unreductive naturalistic approach, to ontological pluralism is achieved.

The effect of perceptual history on the interpretation of causality.

The ability to interpret spatiotemporal contingencies in terms of causal relationships plays a key role in human understanding of the external world. Indeed, the detection of such simple properties enables us to attribute causal attributes to interactions between objects. Here, we investigated the degree to which this perception of causality depends on recent experience, as has been found for other low-level properties of visual stimuli. Participants were shown launching sequences of colliding circles with varying collision lags and were asked to report their impression of causality. We found short-term attractive and long-term repulsive and attractive effects of perceptual history on the interpretation of causality. Stimuli directly following a causal impression were more likely to be judged as causal and vice versa. However, prior judgments on less recent (>5) trials biased current perception with both positive/attractive and negative/repulsive influences. We interpret these results in terms of two potential mechanisms: adaptive temporal binding windows and updating of internal representations of causality. Overall, these results demonstrate the important role of prior experience even for causality, a fundamental building block of how we understand our world.

Militarizing Marriage: West African Soldiers’ Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire

Militarizing Marriage: West African Soldiers’ Conjugal Traditions in Modern French Empire

Perceived causal symptom network of adolescent mental health issues

Adolescent mental health is difficult to capture in categories such as depression or specific anxiety disorders. An alternative is to approach psychiatric symptoms as causal networks, potentially revealing feedback loops that maintain a pathological state. One approach to creating such networks, implemented in the PECAN methodology, is to ask adolescents about their perceptions of the causes to their symptoms. For this purpose, a transdiagnostic item list was created, and adolescents who screened positive for depression (N = 55) completed twice in two weeks a survey quantifying perceptions of causality between their mental health problems. A network that was averaged across all participants was reliable and revealed three strong feedback loops: a first loop running through stress, insomnia, fatigue, procrastination, and back to stress; a second loop between stress and overthinking; and a third loop between stress and procrastination. Although all adolescents in the study screened positive for depression, symptoms of depression were not particularly central to the network. Instead, the most central symptoms were procrastination and overthinking. The average test-retest reliability for individual networks was low, limiting clinical application. In conclusion, PECAN was found to be reliable and useful when creating a group-level network of adolescent mental health problems. While informative at a group level, the method should be improved before it can be used to inform treatment at the individual level.

The Magnitude Heuristic: Larger Differences Increase Perceived Causality

AbstractWith the rise of machine learning and “big data,” many large yet spurious relationships between variables are discovered, leveraged by marketing communications, and publicized in the media. Thus, consumers are increasingly exposed to many large-magnitude relationships between variables that do not signal causal effects. This exposure may carry a substantial cost. Seven studies demonstrate that the magnitudes of relationships between variables can distort consumers’ judgments about whether those relationships reflect causal effects. Specifically, consumers often use a magnitude heuristic: consumers infer that relationships with larger perceived magnitudes are more likely to reflect causal effects, even when this is not true (and even when relationships’ correlations are held constant). In many situations, relying on the magnitude heuristic will distort causality judgments, such as when large-magnitude relationships between variables are spurious, or when normatively extraneous factors (e.g., reference points) distort perceptions of magnitudes. Moreover, magnitude-distorted (mis)perceptions of causality, in turn, distort consumers’ purchase and consumption decisions. Since consumers often encounter spurious relationships with large magnitudes in the health domain and in other consequential domains, the magnitude heuristic is likely to lead to biases in some of consumers’ most important decisions.

The possibility of an impetus heuristic.

Evidence consistent with a belief in impetus is drawn from studies of naïve physics, perception of causality, perception of force, and representational momentum, and the possibility of an impetus heuristic is discussed. An impetus heuristic suggests the motion path of an object that was previously constrained or influenced by an external source (e.g., object, force) appears to exhibit the same constraint or influence even after that constraint or influence is removed. Impetus is not a valid physical principle, but use of an impetus heuristic can in some circumstances provide approximately correct predictions regarding future object motion, and such predictions require less cognitive effort and resources than would predictions based upon objective physical principles. The relationship of an impetus heuristic to naïve impetus theory and to objective physical principles is discussed, and use of an impetus heuristic significantly challenges claims that causality or force can be visually perceived. Alternatives to an impetus heuristic are considered, and potential boundary conditions and falsification of the impetus notion are discussed. Overall, use of an impetus heuristic offers a parsimonious explanation for findings across a wide range of perceptual domains and could potentially be extended to more metaphorical types of motion.

Embodying Meaning Visually: From Perceptual Dynamics to Motion Kinematics

Abstract This paper adopts an embodied cognitive perspective to review the significance of dynamic patterns in the visual expression of meaning. Drawing upon the work of Rudolf Arnheim we first show how perceptual dynamics of inanimate objects might be extended in order to structure abstract meaning in fixed images such as paintings. Second, we evaluate existing experimental work that shows how simple kinematic structures within a stationary frame might embody such high-level properties as perceptual causality and animacy. Third and last, we take inspiration from these experiments to shed light on the expressiveness of dynamic patterns that unfold once the frame itself becomes a mobile entity (i.e., camera movement). In the latter case we will also present a filmic case study, showing how filmmakers might resort to these dynamic patterns so as to embody a film’s story content, while simultaneously offering a further avenue for film scholars to deepen their engagement with the experimental method.

More frequent, shorter trials enhance acquisition in a training session: There is a free lunch!

The strength of the learned relation between two events, a model for causal perception, has been found to depend on their overall statistical relation, and might be expected to be related to both training trial frequency and trial duration. We report five experiments using a rapid-trial streaming procedure containing Event 1-Event 2 pairings (A trials), Event 1-alone (B trials), Event 2-alone (C trials), and neither event (D trials), in which trial frequencies and durations were independently varied. Judgements of association increased with increasing frequencies of A trials and decreased with increasing frequencies of both B and C trials but showed little effect of frequency of D trials. Across five experiments, a weak but often significant effect of trial duration was also detected, which was always in the same direction as trial frequency. Thus, both frequency and duration of trials influenced learning, but frequency had decidedly stronger effects. Importantly, the benefit of more trials greatly outweighed the observed reduction in effect size caused by a proportional decrease in trial duration. In experiment 5, more trials of proportionately shorter duration enhanced effects on contingency judgments despite a shortening of the training session. We consider the observed 'frequency advantage' with respect to both frequentist models of learning and models based on information. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).