ArticlePeerJ2017
Causal events enter awareness faster than non-causal events.
Article in PeerJ, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 42 citations in OpenAlex.
- The relation matters: Visual working memory-guided attention can be modulated by causality between memory items.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Article
- Michotte's research on perceptual impressions of causality: a registered replication study.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Causal Perception(s).Cognitive science · 2025Article
- Article
- Review
- A comparative study of causal perception in Guinea baboons (Papio papio) and human adults.PloS one · 2024Article
- Exploring the influence of self-identification on perceptual judgments of physical and social causality.PeerJ · 2024Article
- Perceiving animacy from kinematics: visual specification of life-likeness in simple geometric patterns.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Review
- The evolutionary origins of syntax: Event cognition in nonhuman primates.Science advances · 2022Review
- Article
- Windows of Integration Hypothesis Revisited.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2020Review
- "Real-life" continuous flash suppression (CFS)-CFS with real-world objects using augmented reality goggles.Behavior research methods · 2019Article
- Emotion in Chinese Words Could Not Be Extracted in Continuous Flash Suppression.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2019Article
- Commentary: Definitely maybe: can unconscious processes perform the same functions as conscious processes?Frontiers in psychology · 2017Article
- Phenomenal Causality and Sensory Realism.i-PerceptionArticle
- Improving causality perception judgments in schizophrenia spectrum disorder via transcranial direct current stimulation.Journal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPNArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Philosophers have long argued that causality cannot be directly observed but requires a conscious inference (Hume, 1967). Albert Michotte however developed numerous visual phenomena in which people seemed to perceive causality akin to primary visual properties like colour or motion (Michotte, 1946). Michotte claimed that the perception of causality did not require a conscious, deliberate inference but, working over 70 years ago, he did not have access to the experimental methods to test this claim. Here we employ Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS)-an interocular suppression technique to render stimuli invisible (Tsuchiya & Koch, 2005)-to test whether causal events enter awareness faster than non-causal events. We presented observers with 'causal' and 'non-causal' events, and found consistent evidence that participants become aware of causal events more rapidly than non-causal events. Our results suggest that, whilst causality must be inferred from sensory evidence, this inference might be computed at low levels of perceptual processing, and does not depend on a deliberative conscious evaluation of the stimulus. This work therefore supports Michotte's contention that, like colour or motion, causality is an immediate property of our perception of the world.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.