How do we learn and internalize the rules of physics?
Do we ever learn or internalize wrong ones?
Relevant publications
A psychometric approach to intuitive physics – Riener, Proffitt and Salthouse (2005)
How do we learn and internalize the rules of physics?
Do we ever learn or internalize wrong ones?
Relevant publications
A psychometric approach to intuitive physics – Riener, Proffitt and Salthouse (2005)
I’m working on a paper about intuitive physics for a graduate-level course in philosophy and cognitive science here at Georgia State University. Your evidence that intuitive physics performance is influenced by some independent ability that doesn’t decline with age strikes me as compelling, but the article does not include the specific set of questions that you presented to participants.
My argument considers Zago & Lacquaniti’s ” Cognitive, perceptual and action-oriented representations of falling objects.” (2005), in which they argue for some degree of cognitive impenetrability between visual/perceptual and sensorimotor/action systems. My hunch is that, if they’re right, the form of the response to an intuitive physics question matters for which of those systems gets used to find the answer. I’d be interested to see if I can find anything relevant about the tasks you and collaborators asked participants to complete.
If you can send along the questionnaire itself, I would really appreciate the help. If not–were they multiple-choice questions? Did participants have to draw a trajectory/water level?
Thanks for your time!