A Contribution to the Study of Phenomenal Causation *

Abstract

In his studies of the perception of causality, Michotte describes a number of “impressions” concomitant with precisely defined experimental conditions, of which “Launching” ^† and “Triggering” ^† are two of the most important. Two major factors influencing the nature of the impressions are the relative speeds of the two rectangles representing objects participating in dynamic inter-relationships, and the length of path of the more passive of the two objects. This investigation was an attempt to discover the quantitative relationships obtaining between these two independent variables and the dependent variable of the subjects’ responses to the experimental conditions.