Psychology (Functional Area: Brain, Behaviour & Cognitive Sciences)
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Browsing Psychology (Functional Area: Brain, Behaviour & Cognitive Sciences) by Subject "Acceleration"
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Item Open Access The Perception Of Falling Objects(2024-11-07) Phan, Mai Huong; Harris, LaurenceAristotle believed that objects fell at a constant velocity, which raised the possibility that people's visual perception of falling motion might be biased away from acceleration towards constant velocity. I tested this idea by requiring participants to judge whether a ball moving in a simulated naturalistic setting appeared to accelerate or decelerate, as a function of its motion direction and the amount of acceleration/deceleration. I found that the point of subjective constant velocity (PSCV) differed between up and down but not between left and right motion directions, which indicated that more acceleration was needed for a downward-falling object to appear at constant velocity than for an upward “falling” object. I found no significant differences in sensitivity to acceleration for the different motion directions. My results support the idea that Aristotle's belief may in part be due to a bias that reduces the perceived magnitude of acceleration for falling objects.