Causal events enter awareness faster than non-causal events

PeerJ

article

Lee de-Wit¹  Pieter Moors³  Johan Wagemans³ 

[1] Institute of Continuing Education, University of Cambridge;Cognition and Language Sciences, University College London, University of London;Department of Brain and Cognition, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

关键词: Continuous flash suppression;    Visual awareness;    Binocular rivalry;    Perception of causality;    Consciousness;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.2932

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

Philosophers have long argued that causality cannot be directly observed but requires a conscious inference (Hume, 1967). Albert Michotte however developed numerous visual phenomena in which people seemed to perceive causality akin to primary visual properties like colour or motion (Michotte, 1946). Michotte claimed that the perception of causality did not require a conscious, deliberate inference but, working over 70 years ago, he did not have access to the experimental methods to test this claim. Here we employ Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS)—an interocular suppression technique to render stimuli invisible (Tsuchiya & Koch, 2005)—to test whether causal events enter awareness faster than non-causal events. We presented observers with ‘causal’ and ‘non-causal’ events, and found consistent evidence that participants become aware of causal events more rapidly than non-causal events. Our results suggest that, whilst causality must be inferred from sensory evidence, this inference might be computed at low levels of perceptual processing, and does not depend on a deliberative conscious evaluation of the stimulus. This work therefore supports Michotte’s contention that, like colour or motion, causality is an immediate property of our perception of the world.

【 授权许可】

CC BY