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Causality influences children's and adults' experience of temporal order

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Tecwyn, Emma C., Bechlivanidis, Christos, Lagnado, David A., Hoerl, Christoph, Lorimer, Sara, Blakey, Emma, McCormack, Teresa and Buehner, Marc J. (2020) Causality influences children's and adults' experience of temporal order. Developmental Psychology, 56 (4). pp. 739-755. doi:10.1037/dev0000889 ISSN 0012-1649.

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Official URL: http://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000889

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Abstract

Although it has long been known that time is a cue to causation, recent work with adults has demonstrated that causality can also influence the experience of time. In causal reordering (Bechlivanidis & Lagnado, 2013, 2016) adults tend to report the causally consistent order of events rather than the correct temporal order. However, the effect has yet to be demonstrated in children. Across four preregistered experiments, 4- to 10-year-old children (N = 813) and adults (N = 178) watched a 3-object Michotte-style “pseudocollision.” While in the canonical version of the clip, object A collided with B, which then collided with object C (order: ABC), the pseudocollision involved the same spatial array of objects but featured object C moving before object B (order: ACB), with no collision between B and C. Participants were asked to judge the temporal order of events and whether object B collided with C. Across all age groups, participants were significantly more likely to judge that B collided with C in the 3-object pseudocollision than in a 2-object control clip (where clear causal direction was lacking), despite the spatiotemporal relations between B and C being identical in the two clips (Experiments 1-3). Collision judgments and temporal order judgments were not entirely consistent, with some participants—particularly in the younger age range—basing their temporal order judgments on spatial rather than temporal information (Experiment 4). We conclude that in both children and adults, rather than causal impressions being determined only by the basic spatial–temporal properties of object movement, schemata are used in a top-down manner when interpreting perceptual displays. (APA PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)

Item Type: Journal Article
Alternative Title:
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General)
B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BD Speculative Philosophy
Divisions: Faculty of Social Sciences > Philosophy
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): Causation, Perception (Philosophy) , Perception in children, Cognition in children , Time perception
Journal or Publication Title: Developmental Psychology
Publisher: American Psychological Association
ISSN: 0012-1649
Official Date: 5 March 2020
Dates:
DateEvent
5 March 2020Published
4 December 2019Accepted
Volume: 56
Number: 4
Page Range: pp. 739-755
DOI: 10.1037/dev0000889
Status: Peer Reviewed
Publication Status: Published
Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): "©American Psychological Association, 2020. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is available, upon publication, at: http://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000889
Access rights to Published version: Restricted or Subscription Access
Copyright Holders: ©American Psychological Association 2020
Date of first compliant deposit: 10 December 2019
Date of first compliant Open Access: 10 December 2019
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant:
Project/Grant IDRIOXX Funder NameFunder ID
RPG-2015-267Leverhulme Trusthttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000275
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