Visual Impressions of Pushing and Pulling: The Object Perceived as Causal is Not Always the One That Moves First

Stimuli were presented in which a moving object (A) contacted a stationary object (B), whereupon both objects moved back in the direction from which object A had come. When object B rapidly decelerated to a standstill, so that the two objects did not remain in contact, object B was perceived as pushing object A. Thus, even though object B only moved when contacted by object A, it was perceived as the causal object, as making something happen to object A. This is contrary to the hypothesis that the object perceived as causal is always the object that moves first. It is, however, consistent with a theoretical account, in which visual causal impressions occur through a process in which visually picked-up kinematic information is matched to stored representations, based on experiences of actions on objects, which specify forces and causality as part of the perceptual interpretation of the event.