Human Vision Reconstructs Time to Satisfy Causal Constraints

The goal of perception is to infer the most plausible source of sensory stimulation. Unisensory perception of temporal order, however, appears to require no inference, because the order of events can be uniquely determined from the order in which sensory signals arrive. Here, we demonstrate a novel perceptual illusion that casts doubt on this intuition: In three experiments (N = 607), the experienced event timings were determined by causality in real time. Adult participants viewed a simple three-item sequence, ACB, which is typically remembered as ABC in line with principles of causality. When asked to indicate the time at which events B and C occurred, participants' points of subjective simultaneity shifted so that the assumed cause B appeared earlier and the assumed effect C later, despite participants' full attention and repeated viewings. This first demonstration of causality reversing perceived temporal order cannot be explained by postperceptual distortion, lapsed attention, or saccades

Neural theory for the perception of causal actions

The efficient prediction of the behavior of others requires the recognition of their actions and an understanding of their action goals. In humans, this process is fast and extremely robust, as demonstrated by classical experiments showing that human observers reliably judge causal relationships and attribute interactive social behavior to strongly simplified stimuli consisting of simple moving geometrical shapes. While psychophysical experiments have identified critical visual features that determine the perception of causality and agency from such stimuli, the underlying detailed neural mechanisms remain largely unclear, and it is an open question why humans developed this advanced visual capability at all. We created pairs of naturalistic and abstract stimuli of hand actions that were exactly matched in terms of their motion parameters. We show that varying critical stimulus parameters for both stimulus types leads to very similar modulations of the perception of causality. However, the additional form information about the hand shape and its relationship with the object supports more fine-grained distinctions for the naturalistic stimuli. Moreover, we show that a physiologically plausible model for the recognition of goal-directed hand actions reproduces the observed dependencies of causality perception on critical stimulus parameters. These results support the hypothesis that selectivity for abstract action stimuli might emerge from the same neural mechanisms that underlie the visual processing of natural goal-directed action stimuli. Furthermore, the model proposes specific detailed neural circuits underlying this visual function, which can be evaluated in future experiments.Seventh Framework Programme (European Commission) (Tango Grant FP7-249858-TP3 and AMARSi Grant FP7-ICT- 248311)Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Grant GI 305/4-1)Hermann and Lilly Schilling Foundation for Medical Researc

Emerging perception of causality in action-and-reaction sequences from 4 to 6 months of age: is it domain-specific?

Two experiments (N=136) studied how 4- to 6-month-olds perceive a simple schematic event, seen as goal-directed action and reaction from 3 years of age. In our causal reaction event, a red square moved toward a blue square, stopping prior to contact. Blue began to move away before red stopped, so that both briefly moved simultaneously at a distance. Primarily, our study sought to determine from what age infants see the causal structure of this reaction event. In addition, we looked at whether this causal percept depends on an animate style of motion and whether it correlates with tasks assessing goal perception and goal-directed action. Infants saw either causal reactions or noncausal delayed control events in which blue started some time after red stopped. These events involved squares that moved either rigidly or nonrigidly in an apparently animate manner. After habituation to one of the four events, infants were tested on reversal of the habituation event. Spatiotemporal features reversed for all events, but causal roles changed only in reversed reactions. The 6-month-olds dishabituated significantly more to reversal of causal reaction events than to noncausal delay events, whereas younger infants reacted similarly to reversal of both. Thus, perceptual causality for reaction events emerges by 6 months of age, a younger age than previously reported but, crucially, the same age at which perceptual causality for launch events has emerged in prior research. On our second question, animate/inanimate motion had no effect at any age, nor did significant correlations emerge with our additional tasks assessing goal perception or goal-directed object retrieval. Available evidence, here and elsewhere, is as compatible with a view that infants initially see A affecting B, without differentiation into physical or psychological causality, as with the standard assumption of distinct physical/psychological causal perception

The problem of causality in cultivation research

This paper offers an up-to-date review of problems in determining causal relationships in cultivation research, and considers the research rationales of various approaches with special reference to causal interpretation. It describes in turn a number of methodologies for addressing the problem and resolving it as far as this is possible. The issue of causal inference arises not only in cultivation research, however, but is basic to all media effects theories and approaches primarily at the macro-level whose main methodology rests on correlational studies (agenda-setting, spiral of silence, knowledge gap hypothesis, etc.). We therefore first discuss problems of causal interpretation in connection with the cultivation hypothesis, and then sketch in summary how these problems arise with other media effects theories. We first set out the basic features of the cultivation approach, then consider the difficulties with correlational studies and discuss alternative research designs - designs which are not original to us, but have been adapted for cultivation research. These comprise laboratory experiments, sequential studies, social studies and time-series procedures. Finally, we argue for multiple approaches that complement one another's advantages and balance out their disadvantages

The Method of Contrast and the Perception of Causality in Audition

The method of contrast is used within philosophy of perception in order to demonstrate that a specific property could be part of our perception. The method is based on two passages. I argue that the method succeeds in its task only if the intuition of the difference, which constitutes the core of the first passage, has two specific traits. The second passage of the method consists in the evaluation of the available explanations of this difference. Among the three outlined options, I will demonstrate that only in the third option – as we shall see, the case of the scenario that remains the same but is perceived in two different ways by the same perceiver – the intuition purports a difference that posses the necessary characteristics, namely being immediately evident and extremely complex and multifaceted, which determine its tensive nature. The application within auditory perception of this third option will generate two cases, a diachronic one and a synchronic one, which clearly show that we can auditorily perceive causality as a link between two sonorous episodes. The causal explanation is the only possible explanation among the many evaluated within the second passage of the method of contrast

Long-range coupling of prefrontal cortex and visual (MT) or polysensory (STP) cortical areas in motion perception

To investigate how, where and when moving auditory cues interact with the perception of object-motion during self-motion, we conducted psychophysical, MEG, and fMRI experiments in which the subjects viewed nine textured objects during simulated forward self-motion. On each trial, one object was randomly assigned its own looming motion within the scene. Subjects reported which of four labeled objects had independent motion within the scene in two conditions: (1) visual information only and (2) with additional moving- auditory cue. In MEG, comparison of the two conditions showed: (i) MT activity is similar across conditions, (ii) late after the stimulus presentation there is additional activity in the auditory cue condition ventral to MT, (iii) with the auditory cue, the right auditory cortex (AC) shows early activity together with STS, (iv) these two activities have different time courses and the STS signals occur later in the epoch together with frontal activity in the right hemisphere, (v) for the visual-only condition activity in PPC (posterior parietal cortex) is stronger than in the auditory-cue condition. fMRI conducted for visual-only condition reveals activations in a network of parietal and frontal areas and in MT. In addition, Dynamic Granger Causality analysis showed for auditory cues a strong connection of the AC with STP but not with MT suggesting binding of visual and auditory information at STP. Also, while in the visual-only condition PFC is connected with MT, in the auditory-cue condition PFC is connected to STP (superior temporal polysensory) area. These results indicate that PFC allocates attention to the “object” as a whole, in STP to a moving visual-auditory object, and in MT to a moving visual object.Accepted manuscrip

Using Visual Illusions to Examine Action-Related Perceptual Changes

Action has many influences on how and what we perceive. One robust example of the relationship between action and subsequent perception, which has recently received great attention in the cognitive sciences, is the “intentional binding” effect: When people estimate the timing of their actions and those actions’ effects, they judge the actions and effects as having occurred closer together in time than two events that do not involve voluntary action (Haggard, Clark, & Kalogeras, 2002). This dissertation examines the possible mechanisms and consequences of the intentional binding effect. First, in Chapter 1, I discuss previous literature on the relationships between experiences of time, action, and causality. Impressions of time and causality are psychologically related: The perceived timing of events impacts, and is impacted by, perceived causality. Similarly, one’s experience of causing and controlling events with voluntary action, sometimes called the sense of agency, shapes and is shaped by how those events’ timing is perceived—as shown by the intentional binding effect. In Chapter 2 I present a series of experiments investigating a hypothesized mechanism underlying the intentional binding effect: Actions may lead to a slowing of subjective time, which would explain the intentional binding effect by postulating a shorter experienced duration between action and effect. This hypothesis predicts that, following action, durations separating any two stimuli would appear subjectively shorter. We tested this hypothesis in the context of visual motion illusions: Two visual stimuli are presented in short succession and if the duration between the stimuli (inter-stimulus interval; ISI) is short, participants tend to perceive motion such that the first stimulus appears to move to the position of the second stimulus. If actions shorten subjective durations, even in visual perception, people should observe motion at longer ISIs when the stimuli follow voluntary action because the two stimuli would be separated by less subjective time. Three experiments confirmed this prediction. An additional experiment showed that verbal estimates of the ISI are also shorter following action. A control experiment suggested that a shift in the ability to prepare for the stimuli, afforded by the participant initiating the stimuli, is an unlikely alternative explanation of the observed results. In Chapter 3 I further investigate whether temporal contiguity of actions and their effects, which is known to impact intentional binding, affects perceptions of visual motion illusions. Two experiments showed that temporal contiguity modulates perceptions of illusory motion in a manner similar to contiguity’s effect on intentional binding. Together, these results show that actions impact perception of visual motion illusions and suggest that general slowing of subjective time is a plausible mechanism underlying the intentional binding effect