Broken Physics: A Conjunction-Fallacy Effect in Intuitive Physical Reasoning
Ethan Ludwin-Peery, Neil R. Bramley, Ernest Davis, Todd M. Gureckis
Psychological Science · 2020 · Volume 31 · Issue 12
Abstract
One remarkable aspect of human cognition is our ability to reason about physical events. This article provides novel evidence that intuitive physics is subject to a peculiar error, the classic conjunction fallacy, in which people rate the probability of a conjunction of two events as more likely than one constituent (a logical impossibility). Participants viewed videos of physical scenarios and judged the probability that either a single event or a conjunction of two events would occur. In Experiment 1 ( n = 60), participants consistently rated conjunction events as more likely than single events for the same scenes. Experiment 2 ( n = 180) extended these results to rule out several alternative explanations. Experiment 3 ( n = 100) generalized the finding to different scenes. This demonstration of conjunction errors contradicts claims that such errors should not appear in intuitive physics and presents a serious challenge to current theories of mental simulation in physical reasoning.
Keywords
reasoning, inference, intuitive physics, prediction, open data, open materials, preregistered
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