Michele Vicovaro

University of Padova | UNIPD · Department of General Psychology

People can represent temporal stimuli (e.g., pictures depicting past and future events) as spatially connoted dimensions arranged along the three main axes (horizontal, sagittal, and vertical). For example , past and future events are generally represented, from the perspective of the individuals, as being placed behind and in front of them, respec...

This review article explores the foundation of laypeople's understanding of the physical world rooted in perceptual experience. Beginning with a concise historical overview of the study of intuitive physics, the article presents the hypothesis that laypeople possess accurate internalized representations of physical laws. A key aspect of this hypoth...

In the present study we broadly explored the perception of physical and animated motion in bouncing-like scenarios through four experiments. In the first experiment, participants were asked to categorize bouncing-like displays as physical bounce, animated motion, or other. Several parameters of the animations were manipulated, that is, the simulate...

Faces oriented rightwards are sometimes perceived as more dominant than faces oriented leftwards. In this study, we explored whether faces oriented rightwards can also elicit increased attentional orienting. Participants completed a discrimination task in which they were asked to discriminate, by means of a keypress, a peripheral target. At the sam...

Stochastic resonance (SR) is a phenomenon in which a certain amount of random noise added to a weak subthreshold stimulus can enhance signal detectability. It is unknown how external noise interacts with neural noise in producing an SR-like phenomenon and whether this interaction results in a modulation of either network efficiency or the efficienc...

Content validity is defined as the degree to which elements of an assessment instrument are relevant to and representative of the target construct. The available methods for content validity evaluation typically focus on the extent to which a set of items are relevant to the target construct, but do not afford precise evaluation of items' behavior,...

In double refereeing, agreement between referees is fundamental for the achievement of a flawless and smooth refereeing activity. Nonetheless, the agreeement can be affected by several external and internal factors, with a negative impact on the consistency of the refereeing and the fluidity of the game. The referee’s Decision Threshold (DT) is the...

According to the spatial–temporal association of response codes (STEARC) effect, time can be spatially represented from left to right. However, exploration of a possible STEARC effect along the vertical axis has yielded mixed results. Here, in six experiments based on a novel paradigm, we systematically explored whether a STEARC effect could emerge...

Individuals tend to prioritize self-relevant information over other-relevant information. Converging empirical evidence indicates that stimuli that are arbitrarily associated with the self are processed more efficiently than stimuli that are arbitrarily associated with stranger identities. In the present study, we tested if a salient perceptual fea...

Functional measurement methodology is applied in many psychological fields to investigate cognitive operations of information integration that people use in judgment and decision making. It is in principle an effective methodology. However, it relies on multi-subject designs and includes the methods of rating, factorial design, and analysis of vari...

According to a space-valence association, individuals tend to relate negatively-and positively-connoted stimuli with the left and right side of space, respectively. So far, only a few studies have explored whether this phenomenon can also emerge for social dimensions associated with facial stimuli. Here, we adopted a cross-cultural approach and con...

The attentional response to eye-gaze stimuli is still largely unexplored in individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Here, we focused on an attentional phenomenon according to which a direct-gaze face can hold attention in a perceiver. Individuals with OCD and a group of matched healthy controls were asked to discriminate, through a sp...

Psychological and mental health consequences of large-scale anti-contagion policies are assuming strong relevance in the COVID-19 pandemic. We proposed a specific focus on a large sample of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), developing an ad hoc instrument to investigate changes occurred in specific (sub-)domains during a period of natio...

The magnitude associated with a stimulus can be spatially connoted, with relatively smaller and larger magnitudes that would be represented on the left and on the right side of space, respectively. According to recent evidence, this space–magnitude association could reflect specific brain asymmetries. In this study, we explored whether such an asso...

Introduction Intuitive physics explores how people without a formal instruction in physics intuitively understand physical phenomena. After a general overview of the topics of current research in intuitive physics and a discussion of current debates, this paper provides an introduction to Information Integration Theory (IIT). Objective By means of...

A hypothesis gaining increasing popularity is that laypeople’s representations of physical phenomena might be driven by internalized physical laws. In three experiments, we tested if such hypothesis holds true for the representation of gravitational motion. Participants were presented with realistic, real-scale virtual spheres falling vertically do...

Inter-rater agreement is defined as the degree to which ratings are identical among different raters. Traditionally, this estimation is simply obtained by counting the number of observed agreements and correcting them by chance agreement (e.g. Cohen’s Kappa). Nonetheless, this approach can be affected by many disturbing factors that could alter the...

Smaller numbers are typically responded to faster with a bottom than a top key, whereas the opposite occurs for larger numbers (a vertical spatial-numerical association of response codes: i.e. the vertical SNARC effect). Here, in four experiments , we explored whether a vertical spatial-magnitude association can emerge for lighter vs. heavier items...

A probabilistic model may involve families of probability functions such that the functions in a family act on a definite (possibly multiple) variable and are indexed by the values of some other (possibly multiple) variable. "Probability kernel" is the term here adopted for referring to any one such family. This study highlights general properties...

When two motions appear to be causally related, the spatiotemporal features of motions are sometimes distorted in order to increase the consistency with causal impressions. Here, in four experiments, we tested if varying the speed of an object A could affect the judged speed of an object B that appeared to be causally related to A. Participants wer...

Despite its popularity, the construct of biological motion (BM) and its putative anomalies in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are not completely clarified. In this article, we present a meta-analysis investigating the putative anomalies of BM perception in ASD. Through a systematic literature search, we found 30 studies that investigated BM percepti...

Several Bayesian models in perceptual and cognitive psychology show a complex organization that is only partly captured by referring to Bayes rule and the associated concepts of prior, likelihood, and posterior distributions. In this article, an algebraic framework is constructed that may serve as a guide for representing and analyzing the internal...

In the size-weight illusion, when two objects of identical weight but different volume are lifted, the smaller object is typically perceived to weigh more than the larger object. A well-known explanation for this and other weight illusions is provided by the hypothesis that perceived weight results from the contrast between actual and expected weig...

In Experiment 1, we explored participants' perceptual knowledge of vertical fall by presenting them with virtually simulated polystyrene or wooden spheres falling to the ground from about two meters high. Participants rated the perceived naturalness of the motion. Besides the implied mass of the sphere, we manipulated the motion pattern (i.e., unif...

Stimuli associated with large quantities are typically responded to faster with a right-than a left-side key, whereas stimuli associated with small quantities are typically responded to faster with a left-than a right-side key. This phenomenon is known as the spatial-quantity association of response codes (SQUARC) effect. Here, in two experiments,...

One reason why Bayesian models based on Normal distributions are welcome in perceptual psychology is that they fit three natural expectations in the area: when two stimulus factors are in conflict the resulting perceptual value lies between the values separately supported by those factors, the resulting value is closer to that supported by the more...

Despite its popularity, the construct of biological motion (BM) and its putative anomalies in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are not completely clarified. Here, we propose a new model describing distinct levels of BM processing, and we present a meta-analysis investigating BM perception in ASD. We screened 114 articles testing BM perception in ASD...

Everyday causal reports appear to be based on a blend of perceptual and cognitive processes. Causality can sometimes be perceived automatically through low-level visual processing of stimuli, but it can also be inferred on the basis of an intuitive understanding of the physical mechanism that underlies an observable event. We investigated how visua...

By introducing the concept of “invariants”, Koffka (1935) endowed perceptual psychology with a flexible theoretical tool, which is suitable for representing vision situations in which a definite part of the stimulus pattern is relevant but not sufficient to determine a corresponding part of the perceived scene. He characterised his “invariance prin...

Because the perceived weight of objects may be affected by various nonweight properties, such as their size and the density of their surface material, relative weight is sometimes misperceived (the size–weight illusion and the material–weight illusion, respectively). A widely accepted explanation for weight illusions is provided by the so-called ex...

Bayesian modeling has gained a conspicuous position in contemporary perceptual psychology. It can be examined from two viewpoints: a formal one, concerning the logical attributes of and the algebraic operations on the components of the models, and a substantive one, concerning the empirical meaning of those components. We maintain that, while there...

Horizontal collisions have long been used as a tool for exploring people's intuitive understanding of elementary physical laws. Here, we explored intuitive understanding of the relationship between the kinematic patterns of collisions and the elasticity of the colliding objects. In Experiment 1A, we manipulated the simulated materials of two virtua...

Visual modules can be viewed as expressions of a marked analytic attitude in the study of vision. In vision psychology, this attitude is accompanied by hypotheses that characterize how visual modules are thought to operate in perceptual processes. Our thesis here is that there are what we call “intrinsic reasons” for the presence of such hypotheses...

The participants in our experiment were asked to judge whether simulated horizontal collisions appeared to be " natural " or " unnatural ". We manipulated the simulated materials and the velocity ratio of two colliding objects. The results revealed a fair degree of consistency between predictions of Newtonian mechanics and the participants' respons...

In this study, the intuitive physics of free fall was explored using Information Integration Theory and Functional Measurement. The participants had to rate the speed of objects differing in mass and height of release at the end of an imagined free fall. According to physics, falling speed increases with height of release but it is substantially in...

The participants in our experiments were asked to judge whether simulated horizontal collisions appeared to be “natural” or “unnatural”. We manipulated the implied masses and the velocity ratio of two colliding objects. Implied masses were varied through manipulations of the objects' simulated materials (Experiment 1) and sizes (Experiments 2 and 3...

Animation budget constraints during the development of a game often call for the use of a limited set of generic motions. Editing operations are thus generally required to animate virtual characters with a sufficient level of variety. Evaluating the perceptual plausibility of edited animations can therefore contribute greatly towards producing visu...

We studied the size–weight illusion through comparative judgments. The experiment had two direct aims: to verify whether the relative contribution of size to apparent heaviness can differ for different stimulus sets, and to verify whether that contribution can differ for different methods of comparing two objects (consecutive vs. simultaneous weigh...

Given a set of points on the plane and an assignment of values to them, an optimal linear partition is a division of the set into two subsets which are separated by a straight line and maximally contrast with each other in the values assigned to their points. We present a method for inspecting and rating all linear partitions of a finite set, and a...

A set of transformations acting within a domain may serve as a standard in judging the diversity within any subset of that domain. We distinguish two possible outcomes of such a comparison (upper vs. lower bound to diversity), highlight some basic properties of both concepts, and illustrate them with examples. In the concluding section we indicate...

résumé – Évaluer la diversité dans des ensembles d'objets en faisant référence aux transfor-mations comme critères Le point de départ de cette étude est la définition de deux concepts relatant comment un ensemble de transformations, agissant à l'intérieur d'un domaine, peut représenter une limite supérieure ou inférieure à la diversité existante da...

Suppose that two squares are aligned horizontally on a computer screen. At a point in time one square (A) starts moving towards the other (B), which remains stationary. When A and B come into contact, the latter starts moving with the same velocity as A, while A comes to a stop. Albert Michotte (1946) demonstrated that, under these stimulus conditi...

This is an intuitive physics study of collision events. In two experiments the participants were presented with a simulated 3D scene showing one sphere moving horizontally towards another stationary sphere. The moving sphere stopped just before colliding with the stationary one. Participants were asked to rate the positions which both spheres would...

Understanding whether observers are sensitive to physical distortions in dynamic events is important in order to develop plausible simulations while saving time on details that observers cannot perceive [Barzel et al. 1996]. In this experiment, we evaluated observers' sensitivity to physical distortions in virtual throwing animations. As previous r...

Animation budget constraints during the development of a game often call for the use of a limited set of generic motions. Editing operations are thus generally required to animate virtual characters with a sufficient level of variety. Evaluating the perceptual plausibility of edited animations can therefore contribute greatly towards pro-ducing vis...

In everyday life, videogames, and movies, motions of human characters and inanimate objects are often in close spatiotemporal relation (e.g., a throwing action of a baseball player). These events have not received much attention in human motion research. Using motion capture, we recorded an actor throwing a tennis ball with an over-arm or under-arm...

Given a set of two-valued points in the plane (some have value 0, the others value 1), to determine an optimal linear separation of the set means to specify a straight line across the plane so that 0-points and 1-points mostly lie on opposite sides of it. The essentials of a computational procedure to this effect are presented, and the procedure is...

Intuitive physics studies our beliefs about physical events occurring in everyday life. Intuitive physics may help improve our knowledge of every-day physical events, our methods to teach physical science, and our under-standing of the history of physics (McCloskey, 1983; McDermott, 1991). In four experiments we explored the beliefs about the slidi...