Different physical intuitions exist between tasks, not domains

Abstract

Does human behavior exploit deep and accurate knowledge about how the world works, or does it rely on shallow and often inaccurate heuristics? This fundamental question is rooted in a classic dichotomy in psychology: human intuitions about even simple scenarios can be poor, yet their behaviors can exceed the capabilities of even the most advanced machines. One domain where such a dichotomy has classically been demonstrated is intuitive physics. Here we demonstrate that this dichotomy is rooted in how physical knowledge is measured: extrapolation of ballistic motion is idiosyncratic and erroneous when people draw the trajectories, but consistent with accurate physical inferences under uncertainty when people use the same trajectories to catch a ball or release it to hit a target. Our results suggest that the contrast between rich and calibrated, versus poor and inaccurate patterns of physical reasoning exist as a result of using different systems of knowledge across tasks, rather than as a universal system of knowledge that is inconsistent across physical principles.

Mind-Bending Geometry: Children’s and adults’ intuitions about linearity on spheres

“…But, using 2D pictures may have made their intuitions about 3D geometry harder to access, especially any intuitions about straight arcs, which appear straight from only one viewpoint of the sphere. Paths presented on real 3D objects or on real or animated 3D objects, in which an actor's movement along paths unfolds over time, might facilitate participants' performance (e.g., Hart et al, 2022;Joh et al, 2011;Smith et al, 2018). Future studies could thus evaluate how the dimensionality and dynamics of experimental displays might differentially engage participants' intuitions about 3D geometry and explore whether simulation versus rule-based reasoning supports accurate judgments about spherical linearity.…”

Can You Hear Me Now? Sensitive Comparisons of Human and Machine Perception

“…Indeed, decades of research on human perception and cognition have revealed knowledge and abilities that were not initially evident from tasks in which subjects freely report what they know or observe. For example, even when subjects cannot explicitly predict how a swinging ball will travel when released from a pendular trajectory (Caramazza, McCloskey, & Green 1981), they may accurately place a cup to catch the ball — suggesting that they possessed the relevant physical knowledge all along but were able to access it only through more implicit processes (Smith, Battaglia, & Vul, 2018). Similarly, even when subjects incorrectly report the locations of remembered objects, they may perform reliably above chance if asked to take a second or third guess (Wu & Wolfe, 2018; see also Vul & Pashler, 2008).…”