White Peter A
School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Tower Building, Park Place, Cardiff, Wales, CF10 3YG, UK.
Psychol Res. 2018 Jul;82(4):652-664. doi: 10.1007/s00426-017-0853-y. Epub 2017 Mar 24.
Many studies of perceptual impressions of causality have used a stimulus in which a moving object (the launcher) contacts a stationary object (the target) and the latter then moves off. Such stimuli give rise to an impression that the launcher makes the target move. In the present experiments, instead of a single target object, an array of four vertically aligned objects was used. The launcher contacted none of them, but stopped at a point between the two central objects. The four objects then moved with similar motion properties, exhibiting the Gestalt property of common fate. Strong impressions of causality were reported for this stimulus. It is argued that the array of four objects was perceived, by the likelihood principle, as a single object with some parts unseen, that the launcher was perceived as contacting one of the unseen parts of this object, and that the causal impression resulted from that. Supporting that argument, stimuli in which kinematic features were manipulated so as to weaken or eliminate common fate yielded weaker impressions of causality.
许多关于因果关系感知印象的研究都使用了一种刺激方式，即一个移动的物体（发射者）与一个静止的物体（目标）接触，然后后者移动开。这样的刺激会产生一种发射者使目标移动的印象。在本实验中，使用的不是单个目标物体，而是四个垂直排列的物体组成的阵列。发射者没有接触其中任何一个物体，而是停在两个中心物体之间的一点上。然后这四个物体以相似的运动特性移动，呈现出共同命运的格式塔特性。对于这种刺激，有强烈的因果关系印象被报告。有人认为，根据似然性原则，这四个物体组成的阵列被感知为一个部分不可见的单个物体，发射者被感知为接触了这个物体不可见的部分之一，而因果印象就是由此产生的。支持这一论点的是，对运动特征进行操纵以削弱或消除共同命运的刺激产生的因果关系印象较弱。
