Embeddedness of Earth's gravity in visual perception.

Abstract

Falling objects are commonplace in daily life, requiring precise perceptual judgments for interception and avoidance. We argue that human judgments of projectile motion arise from the interplay between sensory information and predictions constrained by Newtonian mechanics. Our study investigates how individuals perceive falling objects under various gravitational conditions, aiming to understand the role of internalized gravity in visual perception. Through meticulously controlling the available information, we demonstrated that these phenomena cannot be explained solely by simple heuristics nor representational momentum. Instead, we found that the perceptual judgments of humans (n = 11, 13, 14, and 11, respectively, in Experiments 1, 2, 3, and 4) are influenced by a combination of sensory information and gravity predictions, highlighting the role of internalized physical constraints in the perception of projectile motion.