Hegarty 1992: Mental animation: Inferring motion from static displays of mechanical systems

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Hegarty, M. (1992). Mental animation: Inferring motion from static displays of mechanical systems. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 18(5), 1084--1102.

@Article{Hegarty1992,
  author = 	 {Hegarty, Mary},
  title = 	 {Mental animation: Inferring motion from static displays
of mechanical systems},
  journal = 	 {Journal of Experimental Psychology:
Learning, Memory, and Cognition},
  year = 	 {1992},
  OPTkey = 	 {},
  OPTvolume = 	 {18},
  OPTnumber = 	 {5},
  OPTpages = 	 {1084--1102},
  OPTmonth = 	 {},
  OPTnote = 	 {},
  OPTannote = 	 {}
}

Author of the summary: Jim Davies, 2004, jim@jimdavies.org

Cite this paper for:

Mental animation of causal effects occurs piecemeal through a causal chain.

Mental models theory seems to predict that mental animations occur as they do in physical reality. This paper shows evidence for an alternate hypothesis: that they occur piecemeal. That is, one moving part is animated at a time through the causal chain of events in the imagined system. Subjects verified events happening at various parts of the causal chain in pulley systems. Those further in the chain had a longer reaction time. The model supported is a production system. The model begins with the pull rope and infers motion of each component in the causal chain, stopping when the motion of the component in question is determined. [1089]

Summary author's notes:

This work is about reasoning about the propogation of causal effects in simulation.
French, Ekstrom, and Price 1963: solution time is proportaional to the numebr of spatial manipulations that need to be performed

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Last modified: Tue May 13 10:28:57 EDT 2003