Perception of forces exerted by objects in collision events

Impressions of force are commonplace in the visual perception of objects interacting. It is proposed that these impressions have their source in haptically mediated experiences of exertion of force in actions on objects. Visual impressions of force in interactions between objects occur by a kind of generalization of the proprioceptive impression of force to interactions between objects on the basis of matching to stored representations of actions on objects carried out by the perceiver. Such experiences give rise to a distinctive perceptual interpretation of interactions between objects as involving force exerted by one object acting against resistance offered by the other object. Active, moving objects are seen as exerting force; inactive objects are seen as offering varying degrees of resistance and not as exerting force unless there is reason to think that they acted back on the active object. The results of 3 experiments in which people viewed simple animations of objects colliding and made judgments of force and resistance supported several predictions made by this account.