Representational gravity: Empirical findings and theoretical implications

Judgment of the location of a previously viewed moving or stationary target is often displaced in the direction of implied gravitational attraction, and this has been referred to as representational gravity. Variables that have been investigated for a possible influence on representational gravity include characteristics of the target (size/mass, velocity, distance traveled, orientation, modality), display (retention interval, response measure, height in the picture plane), context (nontarget intramodal stimuli, cross-modal components of a single stimulus), and observer (oculomotor behavior, body orientation, psychopathology), and several additional variables that might influence representational gravity but have not yet been investigated are suggested for future studies. Conclusions and speculations regarding the contribution and relationship of representational gravity to several variables, processes, and tasks (physical gravity, linear acceleration, subjective visual vertical, size/mass and weight, other biases in spatial localization, catching and intercepting a moving target, an internal model of gravity, naïve physics, a gravity heuristic, art and aesthetics) are discussed, and compatibility of representational gravity with Gibsonian and representational approaches is noted. It is suggested that representational gravity is an important adaptation that aids observers in interactions with physical objects in the environment, but that such an adaptation is not necessarily fully consistent with objective physical principles.