Intuitive physical reasoning about objects’ masses transfers to a visuomotor decision task consistent with Newtonian physics
Fig 1
(A) Single trial illustration. Target area and puck are presented on a monitor from bird’s-eye perspective. Releasing the pressed button accelerates the puck by applying a force, which is proportional to the press-time. In trials without feedback the screen turned black after button release, while in feedback trials participants were able to see the puck moving according to simulated physics. (B) Four phases of the experiment. In the ‘prior’ phase, no feedback about puck motion was available, whereas in the ‘feedback’ phase subjects obtained visual feedback about the pucks’ motion. Two pucks with different colors and correspondingly different masses were simulated. In the ‘no feedback’ phase subjects obtained a new puck as indicated by a new color and obtained no feedback. In the last phase, subjects first watched 24 collisions between the new puck and the pucks they had interacted with in the ‘feedback’ phase before interacting again with the puck. Note that the puck of the ‘no feedback’ and ‘collisions + no feedback’ phase are identical.