The Perception of Causality

The Perception of Causality
Author: Albert Michotte
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2017-03-27
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1315519038

Originally published in 1963, this is a classic work on the psychology of perception. By means of suitable patterns on a partly concealed rotating disc Michotte was able to give the impression of objects in movement; and where certain conditions of speed, position, and time-interval were satisfied, his subjects received the impression of a causal interaction between two objects – for example, the impression that one object has ‘bumped into’ another (the ‘Launching Effect’) or is carrying it along (the ‘Entraining Effect’). In a further group of experiments Michotte studies the conditions in which moving objects look as though they are alive. A large number of experiments are described, and on the basis of them Michotte formulates a theory as to the conditions in which causal impressions occur. He also compares his own views on causality with those of Hume, Maine de Biran, and Piaget.

Symmetry, Causality, Mind

Symmetry, Causality, Mind
Author: Michael Leyton
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 644
Release: 1992
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780262621311

In this investigation of the psychological relationship between shape and time, Leyton argues compellingly that shape is used by the mind to recover the past and as such it forms a basis for memory. Michael Leyton's arguments about the nature of perception and cognition are fascinating, exciting, and sure to be controversial. In this investigation of the psychological relationship between shape and time, Leyton argues compellingly that shape is used by the mind to recover the past and as such it forms a basis for memory. He elaborates a system of rules by which the conversion to memory takes place and presents a number of detailed case studies--in perception, linguistics, art, and even political subjugation--that support these rules. Leyton observes that the mind assigns to any shape a causal history explaining how the shape was formed. We cannot help but perceive a deformed can as a dented can. Moreover, by reducing the study of shape to the study of symmetry, he shows that symmetry is crucial to our everyday cognitive processing. Symmetry is the means by which shape is converted into memory. Perception is usually regarded as the recovery of the spatial layout of the environment. Leyton, however, shows that perception is fundamentally the extraction of time from shape. In doing so, he is able to reduce the several areas of computational vision purely to symmetry principles. Examining grammar in linguistics, he argues that a sentence is psychologically represented as a piece of causal history, an archeological relic disinterred by the listener so that the sentence reveals the past. Again through a detailed analysis of art he shows that what the viewer takes to be the experience of a painting is in fact the extraction of time from the shapes of the painting. Finally he highlights crucial aspects of the mind's attempt to recover time in examples of political subjugation.

Mind and Causality

Mind and Causality
Author: Alberto Peruzzi
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2004-02-25
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9027295859

Which causal patterns are involved in mental processes?On what mechanisms does the self-organisation of cognitive structure rest? Can a naturalistic view account for the basic resources of intentionality, while avoiding the objections to reductive materialism? By considering the developmental, phenomenological and biological aspects linking mind and causality, this volume offers a state-of-the art theoretical proposal emphasising the fine-tuning of cognition with the complexity of bodily dynamics.In contrast to the de-coupling of mind from the physical environment in classical information-processing models, growth of brain’s architecture and stabilisation of perception­–action cycles are considered decisive, with no need for an eliminative approach to representations pursued by neural network models. The tools provided by physics and biology for the description of massive causal interactions, on top of which ‘qualitative’ changes occur, are exploited to suggest a model of the mind as a many-layered, co-evolving system. (Series A)

The Oxford Handbook of Causal Reasoning

The Oxford Handbook of Causal Reasoning
Author: Michael Waldmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 769
Release: 2017
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0199399557

Causal reasoning is one of our most central cognitive competencies, enabling us to adapt to our world. Causal knowledge allows us to predict future events, or diagnose the causes of observed facts. We plan actions and solve problems using knowledge about cause-effect relations. Without our ability to discover and empirically test causal theories, we would not have made progress in various empirical sciences. The handbook brings together the leading researchers in the field of causal reasoning and offers state-of-the-art presentations of theories and research. It provides introductions of competing theories of causal reasoning, and discusses its role in various cognitive functions and domains. The final section presents research from neighboring fields.

Fitting the Mind to the World

Fitting the Mind to the World
Author: Colin W. G. Clifford
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2005-05-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780198529699

"This book brings together a collection of studies from international researchers who demonstrate the brain's remarkable capacity to adapt its representation of the visual world in response to changes in its environment."--BOOK JACKET.

Objects and Attention

Objects and Attention
Author: Brian J. Scholl
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2002
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780262692809

An overview of object-based models of attention.

Michotte's Experimental Phenomenology of Perception

Michotte's Experimental Phenomenology of Perception
Author: Georges Thinés
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2013-10-08
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1134506961

This volume of collected papers, with the accompanying essays by the editors, is the definitive source book for the work of this important experimental psychologist. Originally published in 1991, it offered previously inaccessible essays by Albert Michotte on phenomenal causality, phenomenal permanence, phenomenal reality, and perception and cognition. Within these four sections are the most significant and representative of the Belgian psychologist's research in the area of experimental phenomenology. Extremely insightful introductions by the editors are included that place the essays in context. Michotte's ideas have played an important role in much research on the development of perception, and his work on social perception continues to be influential in social psychology. The book also includes some lesser-known aspects of his work that are equally important; for example, a remarkable set of articles on pictorial analysis.

Questioning Causality

Questioning Causality
Author: Rom Harré
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 603
Release: 2016-01-25
Genre: Psychology
ISBN:

Covering a topic applicable to fields ranging from education to health care to psychology, this book provides a broad critical analysis of the assumptions that researchers and practitioners have about causation and explains how readers can improve their thinking about causation. In virtually every laboratory, research center, or classroom focused on the social or physical sciences today, the concept of causation is a core issue to be questioned, tested, and determined. Even debates in unrelated areas such as biology, law, and philosophy often focus on causality—"What made that happen?" In this book, experts from across disciplines adopt a reader-friendly approach to reconsider this age-old question in a modern light, defining different kinds of causation and examining how causes and consequences are framed and approached in a particular field. Each chapter uses applied examples to illustrate key points in an accessible manner. The contributors to this work supply a coherent critical analysis of the assumptions researchers and practitioners hold about causation, and explain how such thinking about causation can be improved. Collectively, the coverage is broad, providing readers with a fuller picture of research in social contexts. Beyond providing insightful description and thought-provoking questioning of causation in different research areas, the book applies analysis of data in order to point the way to smarter, more efficient practices. Consequently, both practitioners and researchers will benefit from this book.

Sensory Cue Integration

Sensory Cue Integration
Author: Julia Trommershauser
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 461
Release: 2011-09-21
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 019987476X

This book is concerned with sensory cue integration both within and between sensory modalities, and focuses on the emerging way of thinking about cue combination in terms of uncertainty. These probabilistic approaches derive from the realization that our sensors are noisy and moreover are often affected by ambiguity. For example, mechanoreceptor outputs are variable and they cannot distinguish if a perceived force is caused by the weight of an object or by force we are producing ourselves. The probabilistic approaches elaborated in this book aim at formalizing the uncertainty of cues. They describe cue combination as the nervous system's attempt to minimize uncertainty in its estimates and to choose successful actions. Some computational approaches described in the chapters of this book are concerned with the application of such statistical ideas to real-world cue-combination problems. Others ask how uncertainty may be represented in the nervous system and used for cue combination. Importantly, across behavioral, electrophysiological and theoretical approaches, Bayesian statistics is emerging as a common language in which cue-combination problems can be expressed.

Causal Models

Causal Models
Author: Steven Sloman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2005-07-28
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0198040377

Human beings are active agents who can think. To understand how thought serves action requires understanding how people conceive of the relation between cause and effect, between action and outcome. In cognitive terms, how do people construct and reason with the causal models we use to represent our world? A revolution is occurring in how statisticians, philosophers, and computer scientists answer this question. Those fields have ushered in new insights about causal models by thinking about how to represent causal structure mathematically, in a framework that uses graphs and probability theory to develop what are called causal Bayesian networks. The framework starts with the idea that the purpose of causal structure is to understand and predict the effects of intervention. How does intervening on one thing affect other things? This is not a question merely about probability (or logic), but about action. The framework offers a new understanding of mind: Thought is about the effects of intervention and cognition is thus intimately tied to actions that take place either in the actual physical world or in imagination, in counterfactual worlds. The book offers a conceptual introduction to the key mathematical ideas, presenting them in a non-technical way, focusing on the intuitions rather than the theorems. It tries to show why the ideas are important to understanding how people explain things and why thinking not only about the world as it is but the world as it could be is so central to human action. The book reviews the role of causality, causal models, and intervention in the basic human cognitive functions: decision making, reasoning, judgment, categorization, inductive inference, language, and learning. In short, the book offers a discussion about how people think, talk, learn, and explain things in causal terms, in terms of action and manipulation.