Understanding natural dynamics.

Abstract

When making dynamical judgments, people can make effective use of only one salient dimension of information present in the event. People do not make dynamical judgments by deriving multidimensional quantities. The adequacy of dynamical judgments, therefore, depends on the degree of dimensionality that is both inherent in the physics of the event and presumed to be present by the observer. There are two classes of physical motion contexts in which objects may appear. In the simplest class, there exists only one dynamically relevant object parameter: the position over time of the object's center of mass. In the other class of motion contexts, there are additional object attributes, such as mass distribution and orientation, that are of dynamical relevance. In the former class, objects may be formally treated as extensionless point particles, whereas in the latter class some aspect of the object's extension in space is coupled into its motion. A survey of commonsense understandings showed that people are relatively accurate when specific dynamical judgments can be accurately based on a single information dimension; however, erroneous judgments are pervasive when simple motion contexts are misconstrued as being multidimensional, and when multidimensional quantities are the necessary basis for accurate judgments.